I realize this covers a long period,, and the answer might be different in different places and time, but when dueling was in vogue, how would a gentleman respond to a grave insult from someone who was their social superior or inferior?
I know it would not be considered appropriate for a commoner to challenge a Lord to a duel, or vice versa, for example. But surely if someone called you a liar to your face, or cast asperions on the honour of your wife or daughter you could not be expected to just laugh it off.
Of course, if one was in direct authority over the other, consquences could come that way: if an enlisted man strikes an officer they get flogged or thrown in the stockade; if a servant insults their employer's daughter they get sacked. But what if a lord reads an article in the paper calling him a liar in as many words, or if the lord comes down to the public house in his cups and calls the barman's mother a whore? Are the offended parties expected to just let it go? Sue for slander or else shut up?
It does cover a large period, for sure.
However, there's a pretty famous example of this. In 1726 Voltaire had changed his name from François-Marie Arouet, and had become a writer much in fashion for his wit and his skewering of religious superstition. He was taunted by Guy-Auguste de Rohan-Chabot, chevalier de Rohan, who asked, Voltaire, Arouet: what is your name?. Voltaire replied: Voltaire: I begin my name, you finish yours; a reply similar to the general Iphicrates, who had been mocked for his humble birth and said " the nobility of my family begins with me: the nobility of your family ends with you". The Chevalier likely got the reference or was clued in, and was not amused. Soon after, he had some of his servants beat up Voltaire on the street, while he watched from his carriage.
Sore and humiliated, Voltaire attempted to go to the police commissioner with a complaint, but discovered that none of the aristocrats who he'd thought were his friends and supporters would go with him or support him ( one joked "We would be very unhappy, if poets didn't have shoulders": another said "the beating was well-received but badly given"). Voltaire wanted to challenge the Chevalier to a duel, or find some other satisfaction. So to put a stop to him making trouble the Rohan family got a lettre de cachet from Louis XV , and Voltaire was arrested and put in the Bastille. Under some pressure, after two weeks he agreed to be released if he'd go into exile in England. Which he did: and turned his experience as an exile to good use, as it influenced his later ideas about constitutional monarchy, freedom of speech and religion.