[Sticks]

Hitting anyone irrespective of gender is a criminal offence, unless the person being hit is a child, in which case you can knock seven bells out of them and call it lawful chastisement - Go figure.

Any hue the idea that men can hit women, allegedly supported once by Sean Connery, goes back to the day when wives were considered as goods and chattels, and the husband was expected to use force to keep their wife in line, and wives accepted that.

Remember how police would dismiss many an assault with in the marital relationship as "Just a domestic" as if it was to be expected and that if a wife got beaten up, then she must have done something to deserve it.

There still is an attitude that I have seen on the net, that women must be kept in their place by men, bye use of physical force. Some will even try and give Biblical sanction by referring to some passages yet ignoring others and context.

In this case if they were marines you need to find out if they are to be tried in a civillian course or by courts marshall