Would you step in to defend a man?

If you saw a man repeatedly slapping a woman in the street would you intervene? I would, without hesitation. A boy does not hit a girl.

But what if it was the other way around?

I witnessed a drunken woman, slapping her equally drunken boyfriend / husband the other night.

'Just stop it, SLAP, stop it, SLAP, you're embarrassing me, ' she said coldly as he stood there taking it. He didn't flinch or defend himself in anyway. SLAP. He didn't grab her wrists to stop her blows or walk away, he just let her. She wasn't doing him any real physical harm but that is not the point. Maybe he's tried to restrain her in the past and it caused even more 'embarrassment'. I guess he knows what impact his own strength might have on the situation and he's probably programmed like the rest of us that using any physical force on a woman is simply wrong.

I don't know these people so it's all speculation, but I can't compute why publicly chiding and slapping your partner was considered acceptable to the woman whilst harmlessly play fighting with his chums was deemed 'embarrassing'. Maybe he sees his partner as some passionate, crazed, irrational sex siren unable to control her emotional impulses, because women are 'mad', right? SLAP. As far I was concerned, the guy was emotionally castrated in front of us. Then she did it again about an hour later.

A few other bystanders (at various stages of inebriation) made comments amongst themselves but no one felt compelled to do anything to stop it. Why not? It is acceptable behaviour? How can women put themselves on an equal footing to men, if they behave like this and get away with it?

I'm confused as to whether it was an act of abuse or just two people having a harmless barney.

What would you have done?