to not have intervened

[PilgrimSoul]

I am quite shaken by something I witnessed today,and wonder should I have intervened, and in what capacity.
My work sometimes means engagement with people who are on unemployment assistance. Here in Ireland we have long queues of people signing on, often outside the official office, as happened today. Thats not really relevant, this could have happened anywhere.
A woman was standing outside, letting the queue pass her by, a man approached her. She started to hit him around the head,'you , don't touch my sister again, you are a animal' Noone, including myself intervened, when I say hit, it was smack really, not a punch.

In any case, he skulked away, and shortly afterwards a woman joined her from inside the office. She wasliterally black and blue, fresh, I would say she had quite a beating last night.

I live a quite sheltered life,albeit a politically active one, and wouldlproudly call myself a feminist.

I am torn between regretting not saying to the sister, well done, you are amazing for standing up for your sister, and repulsion at the violence from both of them.
Am I unreasonable for not intervening, and simply giving sympathetic looks to the sisters involved.

There is a theory called the bystander effect where the more people witness something, the less likely people are to intervene.

You probably should have intervened as at the time you didn't know why she was hitting him, but it's easy to say that whilst not in that situation and I can see why you wouldn't (it would be quite a scary thing to step into and if there's a lot of people there it would probably make you unsure if there was reason for them not intervening that you'd missed). I wouldn't feel too bad about it, especially as from what you say it sounded like the man deserved it.

I'm not sure if you should of said anything to the sisters or not, without knowing them it's hard to say if they'd appreciate the support or if the poor bruised woman would of just waned to be left alone.

I'm shocked nobody intervened.....we can't always take things on face value and even if we did it was assault.