Zhao Li Hua:
You are quite right we can use the word to mean any dispute including a couple of people getting into and argument in the street and stabbing each other. But what I was talking about was the legalised use of weapons as that was in the context of the chat.
Legal has more to do with the official and social response to dueling, not the definition of a duel. A street fight is not a duel. Formal and prearranged just means rules. Rules means fairness and honor or the conflict resolution is tainted. Witnesses just ensure and confirm the fair and honorable part, prearranged helps with this.
Your observation that most of the record of legalized dueling is more modern is valid for the context of your examples, I hear you.
For the sake of the weapon control conversation, just knowing that dueling is an old problem predating recorded history. Cultures have different approaches to the problem, weapon control can be one of them. I think this is why some cultures have more of it than others, stricter consequences will result in less dueling. A side consequence of less dueling is more cloak and dagger, no less violence or killing.
Records have an expiration date so to speak, they don't last long so there will be a wealth of more recent examples. In the span of human existence record keeping is a fairly new advancement, we spent longer using oral traditions. Vey primitive tribal cultures living stone age lifestyles, that we still have living among us, have ritual combats. The Enga, Huli and the Dani tribes in Papua New Guinea, some indigenous tribes living in the Amazon rainforest, such as the Yanomami and the Matsés, some tribal communities in Africa, such as the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania, have historically engaged in dueling as part of their cultural traditions.
