# Wise-women know best?



## Confusticated (Jul 21, 2004)

Why was it common in Middle-earth for wise women to remain unwed?


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## Grond (Jul 21, 2004)

She was hung up on an elf, silly. Only wise-women knew to stay away from us men. Had she married, she would have been dumb and no longer thought of as wise.


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## Confusticated (Jul 22, 2004)

*"us men"? not "us hammers"?*

I see Grond. You are a Hammer when it helps and a Man when it helps. 



> Had she married, she would have been dumb and no longer thought of as wise.


But it looks like for once we will not disagree in a thread.


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## Grond (Jul 22, 2004)

As Popeye the Sailor used to say,

"I yam what I yam!"


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## HLGStrider (Jul 22, 2004)

Rather than dummy girl, a married woman would be busy girl. Married woman with kids and a house to keep doesn't have time to do the average wise girl sit in front of the books stuff. In that time she'd have to make her own clothes, her own food, her own whatever, and there wouldn't be time for anything else. 

The way I see it is that you can't have two loves and the wise women were probably most in love with being wise. Scholarly folk tend to marry late at life even now. . .and what is more lonely than being wise?


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## Confusticated (Jul 22, 2004)

Why would a woman with something real going in her life such as a love of any thing that takes up too much time to be a mother, go and throw that away by taking a position where she was expected to busy herself with common housework? Wouldn't it make sense that is it mostly the women with no real passion for anything who end up wanting to spend their lives as wives? As I noted above not just dummy girls with nothing to themselves but womanhood but also women with life empty of any special purpose or meaning.

Why do some women need fulfillment by being a wife and mother, but other women do not? Is it because most women take interest in woman type chores that are well fitted to motherhood but some few take interest more common found in men such as lore? And if so, is there any special reason for that?



> The way I see it is that you can't have two loves and the wise women were probably most in love with being wise. Scholarly folk tend to marry late at life even now. . .and what is more lonely than being wise?



Can't have two loves? Does this go for men too. Does a man who loves his work (whatever that is.. fighting, hunting, building) not love his family, and the other way around? Also that mothers wouldn't truly love any of the crafts they may do as chores?

And even supposing a woman can only have one love, what does that tell us about one who choses to be a wife and mother instead of a craftsman or artist or any other number of thing? 

But the most funny thing is that Andreth would have turned into the perfect little wife had Aegnor been willing, would she not?  While not the only factor, I think there is something to the theory that a woman who does not find love is more likely to become more wise.

I have to add I think it is the work of being a mother more than the work of being a wife that takes up so much of one's life to the point she might become someone with no interest outside her duties.


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## Grond (Jul 22, 2004)

Unfortunately, for the most part, woman's main job in life is to raise children. It is the DNA profile we are born with. Men are hunters, leaders and providers. Women are child rearers, meal preparers, healers, etc. 

I'm not saying this is what women are limited to doing as we have evolved but... just in our most primative state, that is the hierchy that our DNA has formed.


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## Confusticated (Jul 22, 2004)

But why should wise women be different? Do they have less of motherly instincts or do they just care more about lore? Which comes first: lack of desire to be a mother or interest in lore?


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## Artanis (Jul 23, 2004)

What about this: Andreth did not marry because she could not get the man - uh, Elf - that she loved. I guess it was quite uncommon to remain unwed among Men in M-E at that time, and without a husband and children to care about she was forced to find an occupation by which she could contribute to the common well-being of her society. Perhaps the other wise-women had similar experiences (not necessarily with Elven men  ).

On the other hand, the interest of lore may be inherent, but not something that is compatible with married life. In Tolkien's world, men are rulers, both in kingdoms and in marriage. Look at Eowyn. I've always thought that her transmission from a brave shield-maiden to a meek housewife with healing as a side-occupation is incredible. But love seem to have that effect - on women at least ...


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## Confusticated (Jul 23, 2004)

Gah! Both Grond and Artanis!? I guess I need to quit being a moron and learn English. I wasn't asking why Andreth didn't marry, I was asking about the part: "was not uncommon for Wise-women of Men. " I'm not so stupid as to not know why Andreth was unwed!


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## Artanis (Jul 23, 2004)

Nóm said:


> Gah! Both Grond and Artanis!? I guess I need to quit being a moron and learn English. I wasn't asking why Andreth didn't marry, I was asking about the part: "was not uncommon for Wise-women of Men. " I'm not so stupid as to not know why Andreth was unwed!


Cool it!  I was just using Andreth as an example, and suggested that the other wise-women may have experienced lack of luck in love as well, and therefore turned to the perhaps only acceptable occupation there was for unwed women.


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## Nenya Evenstar (Jul 23, 2004)

The time about which Tolkien writes is a time where the man is the provider and the woman is the "nest" maker. The men went off to work and the women stayed at home to take care of the children. Like Elgee said, they did all of the busy and manual labor of the home.

Plainly put, during time period without birth control and very few conveniences, a woman who was married would have very little time, if any, to study.

Therefore, if you were a wise-woman, it can only be assumed that marriage would be very difficult. You would either stay unmarried or stop "practicing" if you were to get married.

Tolkien probably did not think through why a woman would remain unmarried. He probably only thought through things logically (as is common with men ).

Since when is raising children considered to be unfortunate or a duty?


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## Grond (Jul 23, 2004)

Nenya Evenstar said:


> ...Since when is raising children considered to be unfortunate or a duty?


You go girl!!!!!


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## HLGStrider (Jul 24, 2004)

I echo Nenya's last sentiment. Truthfully, I want to be a mother more than anything. I have two dreams. One is eventually to be published. The other is to have a daughter. If it came down to a choice between the two dreams for any reason, the writing would go in an instant. 



My paper for this term is actually why women in our modern world make the choices they make involving career vs. parenting, and a large section of my paper is going to be about how our modern society really doesn't value motherhood. 





Nel Noddings said:


> It is common now to suppose that anyone can make an adequate home; the enterprise supposedly takes no special preparation. As a topic of study, it has been considered intellectually undemanding, one best left to those not intellectually inclined.


 

Noddings is actually the expection of my sources because he is male. Most of them are females who are complaining that they are looked down upon as "unliberated" for their choices to raise their children full time. Your views puncuate that. Even if you don't totally mean them, you did put a smiley after your words, a lot of women seem to feel that that is the way society perceives them for the choice to be a stay at home mom.



Stil, despite this, (again according to the research done for my paper) the amount of women who stay at home with their kids foresaking work has actually gone up in the last decade (I think it was about 13%. . .my notes are out of order right now). Why? Simply because women seem to have a natural bent in this direction. . .which men don't.



Another study asked both sexes if they put equal emphasis on work and family, more emphasis on work, or more emphasis on family. Overwhelmingly, men put more emphasis on work and women more on family. 



Therefore, the men who put more emphasis on family are the exceptions.

The women who put more emphasis on work are the exceptions.



Why are there exceptions? Because people are individuals, not statistics.



This, of course, is the real world, not Tolkien, and Tolkien did not do studies to see if his world reflected the real world, but chances are he had a good grasp on reality and realized this was how it was. 





> Wouldn't it make sense that is it mostly the women with no real passion for anything who end up wanting to spend their lives as wives?


 

You can't have passion for your children? I'd think this would be the most natural thing to have a passion for. 



Though, no, it doesn't make sense. If you do have ONE consuming overwhelming passion for something it is likely to supercede other pursuits. You see this in men as well as women who don't have time for a family because they are busy. Of course, it is easier for men to pursue a passion and have a family at the same time. They can go home, father the child, and go back to work on their passion while the woman spends nine months pregnant and a year or so nursing, and there is no real way to get around that biology yet. 



Plus take in Middle Earth had a higher rate of death during labor than we do now, probably a higher infant mortality rate which involved more care for those infants just to keep them alive, and all the other work necessary, and for the continuation of the race, you are going to see very few wise women. It simply isn't feasible.


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## Lhunithiliel (Jul 24, 2004)

I've been reading this thread for several days now and I've been thinking .... 
"_What a macho thread!!_" 

Seriously, apart from not being quite clear about the purpose of the question of the present thread, I would counter - raise a couple of issues in return, please, to several of the ideas stated, but ideas that I still think are _*not the *_ topic that perhaps should've been in main focus of discussion.

Anyawy ...
Nóm claims:


> I think there is something to the theory that a woman who does not find love is more likely to become more wise.


It seems that you strongly separate _love_ from _wisdom_. 
In plain words - if a women loves - she cannot be wise.

And there is where you are entirely wrong! 
Because you seem to confuse _falling in love_ with _love_ itself - and these *are* very different. While the first is folly and involves emotions mostly, hence not much of wisdom, true, the second involves so much wisdom, that it is absolutely untrue to say that a woman who _loves_ cannot be a _wise_ woman! One needs a lot of wisdom in order to truly love his/her partner, don't you think?

Then, there is a theme throughout the thread claiming that the human society is devided into two - men and women, and is structured in this way that men provide (work, hunt etc...) while women occupy with the housework and with raising children.
Now, I beg the gentlemen here to excuse me, but since when making out of four walls a _home_ is less intellectual than going to work , hunting etc?
And do you claim that raising children does not involve lore and wisdom????!!!!
Meaning,
_*Quantity*_ of activities of men and women is of the same scope, and in our times, that of women is even greater. It cannot be a criteria for intellect.
_*Quality*_ - I'd say that to love, make a "nest" for your family and to raise children requires very much lore and wisdom.

And in this aspect, men and women are equal because, apart from several physiological differences, we still are of the very same species - we are humans. 
So, to claim that a woman does not show interest towards lore and hence is not wise if she has a family, kids, husband, job and a house to take care of, is _*entirely wrong*_!

Because ... what now??? Do you want me to believe that a man is always interested in lore and hence, is very wise, regardless of the numerous every-day activities of his life? While a woman cannot achieve this? 
Then ... do you really want me to believe that a woman is so narrow-minded that it is either lore or the family everyday life???? 

Now, why it "was not uncommon for Wise-women of Men" to be unwed in Tolkien's world - this, I think, is a topic that could be "pushed" into another direction of thoughts.
What is the society of the Men, coming from the East? Or, to be more precise - what is the prototype of their society from human real history? Didn't it bear still traces of the "matriarchy" structure of the ancient human societies? Like the Celts had it... and their ancestors wherefrom they originated?

(_Now - here's sth., Master Grond, that wuld fit so well in the "Library of the Istari" - section!_   )

My two ... stotinki...


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## Grond (Jul 24, 2004)

Lhun,

A woman who is devoted to raising a home and a family typcially has no time for lore and learning. She would have no time for meditation and every time concentration was required, a child would be prone to interrupt. In the days of Middle-earth (from descriptions right out of the book), man was the provider while woman was the homemaker. 

We are not talking about brain power here... we're talking about commitment. A woman who commits to a husband, a family and a home has pretty much given up on being a master of lore. Not because she isn't wise... not because she isn't dedicated... not because she isn't capable but rather, because she has made another choice... to place her life emphasis on something else (husband, children, family). 

I'm going to try this one more time and strictly adhere to the questions at hand...


Nóm said:


> Do women who do not find love turn to studying lore as a way to fill their life?


Andreth found love... it just couldn't be fulfilled. Her love was so deep that it left a void that could not be filled by anyone else so she dedicated herself to emulating the one she loved. He was wise and learned in lore... so she would be also.


Nóm said:


> Or maybe it is the other way around.... maybe only a very sad lady with an empty life or a dummy-girl with nothing to herself but her womanhood can do nothing but be a good little wife. Sadly, I think this is the mosy likely answer.


I won't dignify this with a response. You slap women (over all the centuries) squarely in the face. 


Nóm said:


> Did the Wise-women always think it was best to have no children and so think there was no need of a man?


I think they made a choice. Most women would want "a man", marriage and a family but there are those (both male and female) who would have a different intellectual make-up and who would have no interest in a sexual/family world but rather would be interested in lore and learning. Different strokes for different folks, so to speak.


Nóm said:


> Or maybe even the honourable men of the Edain did not like a woman who is smarter than himself?


Here, you are probably correct. Men of this age would probably have thought Andreth to be a weird old crone... because they were macho men.


Nóm said:


> Or maybe my favourite option: All the wise-women loved the elven-men and were therefore unable to be with them, such as happened with Andreth?


I doubt that it would have been customary for elves and men to socialize. I doubt many woman would have come into contact with an elven-man for any period of time.

There are my answers directly to your questions.


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## Lhunithiliel (Jul 25, 2004)

Grond said:


> Lhun,
> 
> A woman who is devoted to raising a home and a family typcially has no time for lore and learning. She would have no time for meditation and every time concentration was required, a child would be prone to interrupt. In the days of Middle-earth (from descriptions right out of the book), man was the provider while woman was the homemaker.
> 
> We are not talking about brain power here... we're talking about commitment. A woman who commits to a husband, a family and a home has pretty much given up on being a master of lore. Not because she isn't wise... not because she isn't dedicated... not because she isn't capable but rather, because she has made another choice... to place her life emphasis on something else (husband, children, family).


You've grasped correctly my thoughts, Oh, Master! 

But all that, goes with equal power for a man, doesn't it! A man, fully dedicated to deep studying lore, after all, proves to be not too much of a husband/lover either.
This is my point. 
Gender has nothing to do with commitment, IMO. A person (man or woman) can dedicate him/her-self fully and devotedly to one cause or the other, by his/her choice. But then - if this is a true devotion, then the other respective cause will "suffer".
Wise men, truly wise men, are not commonly wedded, even if they had been once...if ever.


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## Grond (Jul 25, 2004)

Lhunithiliel said:


> You've grasped correctly my thoughts, Oh, Master!
> 
> But all that, goes with equal power for a man, doesn't it! A man, fully dedicated to deep studying lore, after all, proves to be not too much of a husband/lover either.
> This is my point.
> ...


Here, I must disagree. I believe Plato was married as were many of the great philosphers of historical significance. On the other hand, over history, women have always been the long, hard workers. Their job of child-rearing, homemaking, etc. takes much more dedication and "time" than did the man's role as provider. I can kill a deer and provide food for a week in a couple of hours time. I can plant a harvest and harvest it in a season. I still have tons of free time to study and learn and still be a father and husband. A woman, on the other hand, must tend to children daily... she must cook... she must clean... she must work all the time, every day. Her time is much more constrained. 

Again, understand that I am speaking in historical roles and not since "liberation" has occurred.


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## Lhunithiliel (Jul 25, 2004)

Well, yes, I do agree that in modern times things are different as far women are concerned.
And perhaps my thoughts were provoked by Nóm who seems to draw conclusions out of historical times applying them to our days .. so it seemed to me. 
However, put in very plain words - I don't think that any great philosopher, scientist, explorer, writer etc. - man or a woman, could "boast" of being the same _great_ husband/wife/father/mother. 
I did not say that none of the great minds was ever married, but even if with a family their commitment was much more to the lore ...or whatever occupied their mind, than to the family matters.
We here have a saying: "You cannot hold two melons under one and the same arm" 
It's so only human! 

Now, if Nóm precises her thought - whether we should discuss those lines from the p.o.v. of ME-society _only_ OR in general, then we could look for and probably find some other explanations.

But... still... whatever fantasy it might be... doesn't it always come as some sort of a reflection of our _reality_?


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## Grond (Jul 25, 2004)

And good Lhun, I just disagree. I think that great philosophers can be great husbands, fathers and leaders, all at once... because their job is philosphy. A wife's job is her home. (again speaking from a historical perspective). A woman just didn't have enough time (with all her real world duties) to study up on lore, meditate, etc. A man who was a writer/philosopher would have ample time to study, meditate, be a father and a husband.

Just my biased, chauvanistic opinion.


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## Lhunithiliel (Jul 26, 2004)

Ah!!!
I hate to disagree with you, Master!!!  

But,

_First_ - if you persuade me that the brain of a woman and that of a man are built differently, then I could accept your "_chauvanistic opinion"_  But they are _*not*_, are they. We are just the same species. And as I said in one of my above posts, _quantity_ of work and commitment to it cannot by no means be a criterion for differentiating between the two genders in their interest in studying lore. A man can be overloaded with as much work as a woman. The difference of the kind of work the two genders have, does not matter.

It is very, very simple - one (man or woman) goes deep into the world of thought and that already breaks/weakens the bonds with the matters from the "material" world. These latter become nuisance, burden etc. and if this phylosopher/writer/scientist ...whoever _*has*_ to handle them - it's only an unpleasant duty, and it's very natural for any human to "do the half work" when he/she does not like it. 
Hence, does it matter whether it is a man or a woman who decides to what to dedicate him/her-self to - to the material, or to the "immaterial" world? 
No! This is only one certain _human being_. From there on, start applying the natural laws of human psychology.
So, any woman, just as any man, can either decide to dedicate her/his mind to lore - and thus become estranged from the "trivial" matters of the surrounding world, OR dedicate her /himself to the very same matters of the surrounding world with its everyday little or greater "battles" and this automatically leaves her/him _no_ chance to find peace enough as to go deep into the essence of things.
This is only natural! It does not matter whether it is a woman or a man.

So ... Now... Don't give me this ...that a man is sooooo perfect that he can _*both*_ - work hard AND study lore devotedly at the same time.  
C'mon! 
.... Give me one example of such a "wonder" of the human species and I'll take your words for true! 

_Second_ - Again! Are we to view this issue from the p.o.v. of ME-time and space only, OR are we to view it in general?

I wonder where have the other girls gone?!  C'mon, Ladies !!!


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## Nenya Evenstar (Jul 26, 2004)

I'm here, Lhun! I was just taking a vacation over the weekend. 

But I won't step in the middle of your argument with Grond. Instead, I shall bring up another point I've been dying to say! However, this idea does somewhat support your statements.

Perhaps there are two classes of people. What Tolkien classifies here as a "wise person" is someone who completely _dedicates_ their life to study. I do not believe there is any difference between men and women here when it comes to marriage. A man who dedicates his life to study will be just as pre-occupied as a woman would be, unless that study is his _job_, in which case he would have to be somehow supporting his family from his study. If he did not support his family from his study, I cannot see how he would be any better off than his wife, because he would have to work on top of his study just as his wife would have to take care of the family.

Therefore, men who are "wise-men" and women who are "wise-women" are both better off it they are not married, or else there would be many sadly-neglected families.

Now, going off the same premise, I would like to suggest that a woman who is not a "wise-woman" has and even _puts into action_ just as much wisdom and lore as her husband.

In this time period that we are talking about schools were not very common. Your regular everyday child was not sent to school. Who primarily taught the child everything he knew? The mother. Of course back in this time peasants and the like were not very educated, so the amount of education a mother could pass on to her child was limited. However, I would ask how so many well-educated men could be around if their mothers were so un-wise and un-educated when it was the mothers themselves who did most of the education.

Therefore, these so-called housewives and homemakers are actually _very_ wise! They not only had to do all the housework and take care of their families, but they had to educate them too. Now that is what I would call a wise-woman!


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## Eriol (Jul 26, 2004)

How nice to see Nenya back .

My first thought when I read this thread was about Heloise and Abelard. I guess you've heard of them. I'm just too lazy now to add a link, but I suppose google would be useful. Heloise was a wise-woman, a gifted student; Abelard was a wise-man (accounted by many to be the wisest at the time); they both had an enduring love, with tragic consequences. But it goes to show that love and wisdom are hardly incompatible .

Are women different from men? Definitely. And this includes their brains. I can also add, "fortunately so". One of the most established pieces of data based on gender is about aggressivity (and this does not include physical aggressivity only). Men are more aggressive. This leads to a prevalence of alcoholism, addictions, etc., among men in comparison with women. And it also leads to a prevalence of "greater achievers". This is, of course, just one piece of data; there are several mental differences between men and women besides that. 

You can also look at purely mental endeavours, such as chess and bridge, and check the gap between men and women. And I don't believe that "social explanations" can account for it; I'm talking about utterly devoted women, absolutely absorbed by chess/bridge, and they can't reach the standard of the best men (though they are surely among the best players overall). Though it is a statistical result, this is not an "average" result; we are comparing the best women with the best men. The best woman bridge player alive is, quite frankly, no match for the first 20 or 30 male bridge players. 

Vive la petite differènce! 

You can also follow Socrates' advice:

"Get married. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy; if you get a bad wife, you'll become a philosopher".

.


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## Grond (Jul 27, 2004)

Lúthien Séregon said:


> ...I myself love to play chess, and I feel insulted by what you've just said. You've basically just said that men are smarter than women, and that women can never reach the same standards of the best men. Period. If there are any differences in men's and women's rankings, it's because women still aren't as encouraged in chess as men, not because they're not as smart.


You shouldn't feel insulted by what he has said because what he said is true. War/battle where men and women's livers are put at risk require strategic/tactical thinking. That thinking involves a part of the brain that has more activity in men (due to genetic make up.) Men are the protector/defenders and have always been. It isn't by accident that both the world's best bridge and the world's best chess players are male. It is because both of these games are adversarial in nature and require strategy of attack and defense. Woman will excel in these games but never reach the pinnacle on a scale with men. This isn't biased or chauvinistic... just a scientific certainty. It has to do with genetics.


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## Eriol (Jul 27, 2004)

Nice to see you back as well, Lúthien 



Lúthien Séregon said:


> That in itself is so fantastic a fact that I would want to spend my life investigating science and the laws of nature beyond our planet alone.



I'm also intrigued by science. Yet, I agree with Pascal (who was also quite intrigued by it) when he said:

"Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science."

In other words, "the intellect is a fine thing, but the heart is better" -- my "Deep Thoughts" for a long time. 



> I myself love to play chess, and I feel insulted by what you've just said. You've basically just said that men are smarter than women, and that women can never reach the same standards of the best men. Period. If there are any differences in men's and women's rankings, it's because women still aren't as encouraged in chess as men, not because they're not as smart.



We have argued along similar lines before, in other threads. I didn't want to insult anyone, of course. I just mentioned a fact. There are alternate explanations, such as the one you just gave -- therefore, I didn't "basically just say" anything, most particularly, I said nothing like "men are smarter than women". However, the more parsimonious explanation (therefore, the one to be chosen scientifically) is -- innate differences. This does not mean "smarter" or "dumber", because intelligence can't be measured along a single axis -- the best bridge players, and particularly the best chess players, can be incredibly dumb in "real life situations", in management of relationships, in treating other human beings, etc. etc. No wonder that most of the chess world champions end up mad. 

Note that the particular women being discussed here, the _best women players in the world_, are as encouraged as can be in their formative years as players (the first 5-10 years of playing). They don't care about what other people think of them, they just want to excel at their games. And this is a quite serious statement (shared by the best men players). They don't want to "be happy", "have a career", "get rich", "get a boy/girlfriend", or any of the more ordinary motivations of human beings. They _only_ want to excel at their games. This, in itself, is a way of thinking that is more prevalent in men -- the addictive mindframe, that views life as a boring interval between the last match and the next -- to be filled by studying the game, of course. Yet there are women (and I know them) who share it. Even those women (about whom the "not as encouraged" explanation fails) can't reach the level of the best men. 

As for the hows, Grond has laid down the basics of the neurological explanation for that. Can you (Lúthien) link us to any study or page that says the contrary? This is not a challenge, just a question, because I never found this piece of data (men being more aggressive) being denied scientifically before.


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## Lhunithiliel (Jul 27, 2004)

Yet... there have always been wise women, just as wise men .... and all of them have had similar fate - solitude.
Perhaps solitude is the "price" for being "wise".


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## Turgon (Jul 27, 2004)

You know I'm not too sure that solitude _is_ the price one pays for wisdom. In fact two of the great wisemen in my life, Socrates and Shakespeare, were anything but solitary by all accounts. One of the greatest pieces of philosophical writing takes place at a drinking party - Socrates was great company by all accounts. Though as Eriol has hinted - his wife may have had different ideas. That being said I think there is great truth in Gray's lines _'Where ignorance is bliss - 'Tis folly to be wise.'_

I'm suprised though that in this thread intelligence seems to be synonymous with wisdom - the too are not the same. Wisdom in itself is not dependant on learning, intelligence or study. I doubt Finarfin had the intelligence of his brother Fëanor - but there is no doubt in my mind who was the wiser. I also doubt the wisdom of Andreth herself. If _The Athrabeth_ can be taken as a philosophical dialogue - then surely Finrod has taken on the role of Socrates?

I think it's also worth noting that elven women had no such problems. How many children did Nerndanel the Wise bear? Galadriel was herself both a mother and a wife. Bloody elves eh? They seem to get all the breaks.


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## Eriol (Jul 27, 2004)

Turgon said:


> I'm suprised though that in this thread intelligence seems to be synonymous with wisdom - the too are not the same. Wisdom in itself is not dependant on learning, intelligence or study.



Yep. I suppose it comes from the practice of calling people of lore "_wise_people". There is wisdom, lore, and intelligence, and surely one does not imply the other or even fosters the other, perhaps. 

The question could then be rephrased thus: "are women of lore less likely to get married? Why?". I don't see any reason to answer yes to the first question; neither in the real world nor in Tolkien's world. Particularly since the term is relative; Barliman Butterbur had a lot of "lore" of his own, as well as the Gaffer. I bet Ioreth was considered "a woman of lore" among her family. And so on. 

Actually, in Tolkien's world humans are hardly interested in lore; it is the province of Elves (and Bilbo ). 

I wonder whether Andreth's title is not simply a recognition of old age; in primitive tribes, the old men and women (who know all the old tales, and therefore are the "people of lore") are considered "wise" -- whether or not they have the kind of wisdom that, say, Frodo showed with Saruman. Andreth's title seems to be more related to her knowledge of the Edain's old tales than to her (keen) mind or wisdom; and I think that every old person of a "scholarly" bent would have that kind of lore among the Edain. 

It's not as if the lore she possessed was hid in the archives of Minas Tirith. So, the claim "wise-women seldom married" would become a kind of oddity. The important question seems to be, when did Andreth become "a wise-woman"? Is it a result of her lore, of her age, or of her wisdom? I think it is the first. And when did she acquire that lore (knowledge of old Edainic tales)? Was it before her heart was broken, or after?


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## Valandil (Jul 27, 2004)

Perhaps Tolkien is just saying that it's wise for a woman not to marry.


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## Inderjit S (Jul 27, 2004)

> his wife my have had different ideas



Xanthippe being (of course) a nagging little cow.  



> The important question seems to be, when did Andreth become "a wise-woman"? Is it a result of her lore, of her age, or of her wisdom? I think it is the first. And when did she acquire that lore (knowledge of old Edainic tales)? Was it before her heart was broken, or after?



Human beings are a pretty fickle race. So it could be that, as you say. Andreth was very knowledgeable, knowledge is not an accurate representation of intelligence per se, knowledge is certainly a _branch_ of "intelligence" (an ambiguous label) but just because you know a lot of stuff doesn't make you "wise" (another ambiguous label), but rather intelligence is manifested in several ways, a person's level of articulation, knowledge and his/her judgement, morals and dexterity are all manifestations of his/her intelligence-sometimes people may be say knowledgeable but not dexterous and sometimes being knowledgeable is more important then being dexterous, for example when writing up a constitution it is better to know about the pros and cons of other constitutions as well as a good working knowledge of politics is desirable, whereas, say if you were a craftsman in a nomad (or any other) group then it would be more important to be dexterous then knowledgeable, or if you were a healer it would be more important to be knowledgeable about the healing properties of plants and herbs then politics.
So we then come to the superfluity of knowledge; or rather some knowledge is needless in certain circumstances and some needed in certain circumstances, knowledge is multifarious. Knowledge could, as Socrates puts it, knowing that you are ignorant and being aware of it was wiser then being knowledgeable and being unaware of your ignorance. So knowledge is usually relative to a persons circumstance-if it is beneficial to be knowledgeable in a certain thing in one place and not in another is of course based on the needs and wants of the community. 

Andreth's "knowledge" lay in her being a lore-master (due to conversations with various people) and knowing things that most people did not know-i.e. her esoteric (such knowledge is naturally esoteric) knowledge on the (supposed) origins of man. But I will show how this knowledge is harmful to the men of her time. The loremasters, or the ones who conversed with Andreth, taught that man was originally immortal and that their Morgoth-worship led to their corruption and them being reduced to mortality. This has several negative side-effects. Firstly; it perpetuates the feeling of disdain at man's mortality, men fail to see the beauty of god's gift and decided to view his "gift" as a curse rather then what it was-a gift without superlatives. Andreth and the "wise-men" thus via their so-called knowledge introduced an anti-death attitude amongst Men, and thus, in a way, propagated the original corruption of Morgoth by making out that Men were "wronged" or that their present state was a punishment or alteration from their original state. Any alteration from a things original state is unnatural; therefore mortality was seen as being unnatural and immortality as natural. Such a view, is, of course, detrimental in every way. Oponion amongst the "wise" would not, of course, have been homogenous, it would have been hetergenous, as all men are different, and I have no doubt that some men did not beleive in the theory about them being originally mortal. The thing is that men, for many ages, did not have any written account of their history; accounts were by and large oral, and oral accounts go through a great deal of change, alteration and exaggeration of the years, so it is hard to decided what is and what is no fact. Discussions on who Homer is (given that unlike Hesiod we have no biographical info. on him, or as Robert Graves states, "her") and whether or not the Trojan war actually took place the way Homer (whoever Homer is) claims it did, or whether or not it took place at all, are all up to a persons interpretation of the facts and opinions of others. Did the war really take place because of the love affair between Alexandros and Helen or was it primarily over power and control over the Aegean Sea? Given that both 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey' went through a great deal of alteration over the years (i.e 7th and 8th century B.C) shows that over time, facts are distorted, and given that Plato wished to censor parts of 'The Iliad' who knows what has and hasn't been altered over the years? Things like the canonization of the Bible and the whole "Satanic Verses" element of the Qu'ran (in which reference is made to polytheistic gods; anathema to strictly monotheistic Islam) shows that even written texts are, to some extent distorted. And so the accounts of the "wise" of Andreth's time and before her time would have been the products of oral accounts, mixed in with the different view, prejudices and ideas of men-and so the "wise" were preaching or believing in an intrinsically distorted tale. This tale also went against the very nature of Man and also introduced a level of discontent and disgruntlement as well as anger against Eru. So Andreth and the other-wise men's so called "knowledge" in fact perpetuated their ignorance; their ignorance of the beauty of death, their ignorance of Eru's will and their ignorance of their own history; their knowledge thus counteracted it's purpose and such a paradox was undesirable and only ever harmful to the cause of Man. 



> No wonder that most of the chess world champions end up mad.



Franz Kafka was, pretty insane, Leo Tolstoy went through a bout of depression, Nietzsche and Freud were well....incestuous, Rousseau was paranoid, Byron addicted to sex, Keats a misogynist and Plato believed in infanticide and Dostoevsky believed the Russian orthodox church was the way to go....and these are the people we admire and look up to (however dilettantistic Nietzsche is)!


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## Grond (Jul 28, 2004)

Lúthien Séregon said:


> ...But men _aren't _ the protecters/defenders any more. Therefore, how can what you're saying be scientific certainty?


And what planet do you live on? 100% of the combat infantryman in the army are male. (women are still not allowed in front line "combat" units). Men continue to be the alpha because it is in their genetics. I can say this with absolute scientific certainty. It is as certain that men are more adept at physical/strategical/tactical military thinking than woman as it is as certain that men can not carry children. Genetics are the key here. Women are superior in their own areas. 

I'm not at all here to bash women... just point out the physical, psychological and genetic differences that we are born with... and as they say, "Viva la difference!"

And of course I forgot to address the actual content of your quote above. I will answer it with a question, has the genetic make-up of man and woman changed even IF we were no longer the protector/defenders?? The answer is no... the genetics are the same, the things men and women are skilled at is different because of it and for that reason men will, on the whole, be better strategic/tactical thinkers than women. History proves me out beyond a shadow of a doubt.


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## Eriol (Jul 28, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> This tale also went against the very nature of Man and also introduced a level of discontent and disgruntlement as well as anger against Eru. So Andreth and the other-wise men's so called "knowledge" in fact perpetuated their ignorance; their ignorance of the beauty of death, their ignorance of Eru's will and their ignorance of their own history; their knowledge thus counteracted it's purpose and such a paradox was undesirable and only ever harmful to the cause of Man.



Ah, the nostalgia about the thread about the Númenóreans fate...



I'm not so sure, as you know, that Andreth was wrong and the Elves were right about Men. But that is another matter. I agree with pretty much everything else that you said. (Though I don't think "believing the Russian Orthodox Church was the way to go" is madness )



Lúthien Séregon said:


> That's not quite true. It could just be that the best women haven't actually come along yet to play in championships - you don't necessarily know that the best women aren't as good as the best men, because you haven't met every good woman chess player. ( Do you play chess yourself? )



I don't play competitive chess since I was a teenager, but I read every book that could fall in my hands about it before I was about 15. My knowledge of chess is, therefore, faulty, although not useless. But my knowledge of bridge isn't; I play in the highest level around here in Brazil, which is one of the highest levels in the world. So I can say with 100% assurance (and I don't like to say anything with that level of assurance ) that your scenario, in bridge, is impossible. No one gets to be a top player without competing in the top championships. You need practice against the best. In chess, yes, there can be a genius (male or female) somewhere in Afghanistan or the like who is unknown -- a genius that has access to the literature, of course, for chess is also very much dependent on the literature (like bridge). But a bridge player, even if he is a walking encyclopedia of bridge, will not be a great (or even a good) player if he has never faced the best players.

There is a ranking of bridge players, women and men; my data come from that. The ranking is divided in historical and updated, and both sets of data sustain the conclusion. 

About the recently changed role of men -- men were the protectors/defenders for 99% of hominid history (actually, it is more like 99.99% -- 100 years vs. a conservative estimate of 1 million years. I could use 10 million without stretching, for this trait goes a long way back into hominid history). Genetics of this kind don't change in 100 years. You know that, Lúthien. (By the way, do you still plan to study great cats?)


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## Lhunithiliel (Jul 29, 2004)

Just a slight historical hint in relation to _"men - protectors and warriors"_, Gentlemen! 

http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women.html


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## Inderjit S (Jul 30, 2004)

> I'm not so sure, as you know, that Andreth was wrong and the Elves were right about Men. But that is another matter. I agree with pretty much everything else that you said.



Tolkien stated several times that men were mortal. Men originally had a longer life-span, and their life-spans were shortened as a punishment, but they were mortal. Their life-spans were restored though, by the Valar, for the Númenóreans, but this did not lessen their desire for mortality, in some ways it even perpetuated it.

And the Russian Orthodox Church was just the slave and propagandist of the Tsar-anyone who believe that such an organisation, which supports and intrinsically corrupt, immoral and backwards regime is the way forward is kind of, if not crazy, then wrong. And the priests of the time are represented in a negative way-just read 'The Brothers Karamazov’  (Oh and that mock execution and those years in the labour camps must have made Fyodor kind of crazy ) 



> Just a slight historical hint in relation to "men - protectors and warriors", Gentlemen!



Men were generally protectors, they were not always the protectors-there were exceptions to the rule-i.e. Boudica and Joan of Arc, and, for example the Amazon Penisthelia who fought Achilles during the Trojan War. There were also several great matriarchs-one amongst the ancestors of the ancient Greeks, and there were also several female avatars in Hinduism (the god of destruction and death is a woman, Kali) and amongst the polytheistic tribes of Arabia.

That link seems to be pretty (at least with regards to recent history) ethnocentric towards Europe. The Sikhs, for example, had many women warriors.


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## Eriol (Jul 30, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> Tolkien stated several times that men were mortal. Men originally had a longer life-span, and their life-spans were shortened as a punishment, but they were mortal. Their life-spans were restored though, by the Valar, for the Númenóreans, but this did not lessen their desire for mortality, in some ways it even perpetuated it.



Oh, I have no doubt that for most of Tolkien's life, he imagined men to be mortal in his stories. However, I wonder whether he was changing his mind in the later years. He often did; and the "trick" he did to change his mind was to say that the earlier version was simply a mistake, due to the recorders (in this case, the Elves -- who got their info from the Valar).

You know all that .

I don't think Tolkien would have felt any awkwardness in declaring that the Andreth account is the "factual truth" about Arda, and that the account given by the Valar about Men was mistaken. The Valar, after all, never knew much about men. 

The question -- one that is hard to answer, I suppose  -- is whether Tolkien intended to do this. He was never explicit about it (unlike, say, the issue of the origin of Orcs).


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## Inderjit S (Jul 30, 2004)

Well, it is time to bombard you with quotes:  



> The Elves thought there was no fundamental difference in the given faculties; but that for reasons of the separate history of Elves and Men they were differently used. Above all the difference of their bodies, which were nonetheless of the same structure, had a marked effect: the human body was (or had become) more easily injured or destroyed, and was in any case doomed to decay by age and to die, with or without the will to do so, after a brief time. This imported into human thought and feeling "haste": all desires of the mind and the body were far more imperious in Men than in Elves: peace, patience, and even full enjoyment of present good were greatly lessened in Men. By an irony of their fate, though their personal expectation of it was brief, Men were always thinking of the future, more often with hope than dread, though their actual experience gave little reason for the hope. By a similar irony the Elves, whose expectation of the future was indefinite — though before them, however far off, loomed the shadow of an End — were ever more and more involved in the past, and in regret — though their memories were in fact laden with sorrows. Men, they said, certainly possessed (or had possessed) óre; but owing to the "haste" spoken of above they paid little attention to it. And there was another reason more dark (connected the Elves thought with human "death"): the óre of Men was open to evil counsel, and was not safe to trust


 _'Notes to Ósanwe-kenta; Vinyar Tengwar 39 _ 



> impulses arising in the fea. either from [?its own nature] or as affected by horror, love / [deleted: hate] / pity / [deleted: self-?sac] [?pastism ?] anger, hate; hate being a crucial case. It was in later E[ldarin] history a product of pride/self-love and emotion of rejection (or most corrupt, revenge, on those opposing one's will or desire), but there was a real 'hate' far more impersonal affecting the fea only as one of animosity, of things that were evil, 'against Eru', destructive of other things, especially living things.#


 _same source_ 



> The life of the Númenóreans before their fall (the 2nd fall of Man?) was thus not so much a special gift as a restoration of what should have been the common inheritance of Men, for 200—300 years


 _same source_ 



> That is, the original and intended lifespan of all Men was thought to have been that enjoyed by the Númenóreans before their fall, ranging from 200 to 300 years.


 _same source_ 



> But the view of the myth [of the Downfall of Númenór] is that Death - the mere shortness of human life-span - is not a punishment for the Fall, but a biologically (and therefore also spiritually, since body and spirit are integrated) inherent part of Man's nature.


 _Letter 156; Letters of Tolkien_ 



> The passing 'oversea', therefore, of Mortals after the Catastrophe - which is recorded in The Lord of the Rings - is not quite the same thing. It was in any case a special grace. An opportunity for dying according to the original plan for the unfallen...die of free will, and even of desire, in estel. A thing which Aragorn achieved without any such aid.


 _Appendix to 'Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth'_ 



> The Númenóreans were largely, and their non-Elvish traditions mainly, derived from the People of Marach, of whom the House of Hador were the chieftains. The legend bears certain resemblances to the Númenórean traditions concerning the part played by Sauron in the downfall of Númenor. But this does not prove that it is entirely a fiction of post-downfall days. It is no doubt mainly derived from actual lore of the People of Marach, quite independent of the Athrabeth. [Added note: Nothing is hereby asserted concerning its 'truth', historical or otherwise.] The operations of Sauron naturally and inevitably resembled or repeated those of his master. That a people in possession of such a legend or tradition should have later been deluded by Sauron is sad but, in view of human history generally, not incredible. Indeed if fish had fish-lore and Wise-fish, it is probable that the business of anglers would he very little hindered.


 _Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth_ 



> my legendarium, especially the 'Downfall of Númenor' which lies immediately behind The Lord of the Rings, is based on my view: that Men are essentially mortal and must not try to become 'immortal' in the flesh.


 _Letter #153; Letters of Tolkien_ 

The picture is clear: Men were said to be immortal in their tales, their tales were fallacious fairy tales-in reality they were mortal-men as immortals was never part of god's plan-or Tolkiens. Men must be mortal, just as Elves must be immortal.



> The Valar, after all, never knew much about men.



Yes-but they knew about Eru's plans (well some of them) and according to Eru man was and was to remain mortal.


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## Eriol (Jul 30, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> Well, it is time to bombard you with quotes:



 Thanks for the stuff from Ósanwe-kenta, I didn't know those. But I knew the others. Please note what I claimed to be "the question" in my last post . And also, compare the dates of the Letters with the date of the Athrabeth.

Perhaps Tolkien was changing his mind; _for sure_ he didn't write the Athrabeth "just for fun", he was addressing an important topic in his mind; if you ask the question "why did Tolkien write this philosophical dialogue?" -- the only one in his writings -- you're sure to get doubts.


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## Inderjit S (Jul 30, 2004)

> Please note what I claimed to be "the question" in my last post





> The question -- one that is hard to answer, I suppose -- is whether Tolkien intended to do this



Ah--yes, of course, I understand that the Letters are from an earlier period-and I understand that you are claiming that Tolkien may have changed his mind (he often did) or at least he left the whole matter ambiguous (he often did) and allowed for us mere mortals to have fastidious, quote-heavy debates over this and that. But IMO Tolkien making Men out to be originally mortal verges too far away from the general story-IMO, Men must be mortal, or it is in their nature to be mortal-immortal man is a paradox, they would just be Elves, but crucially with the ability to leave Arda if they wished, or rather, they could leave Arda when they felt like it, rather then being forced to leave via death. So they may have been, or had the capacity to be immortal, but it was in their nature not to be, they would get weary of the world and leave it 
to be with Eru-but then again the immortality would have been needless or superfluous since if it was an inherent part of man to seek elsewhere and so the capability to live forever would never be utilised-hence the superfluous capability to live forever. Of course one could argue that since we use so little of our brain the rest of our brain is a needless capability since it is possible that we will never utilise it, or we will never utilise it as a whole i.e. it is not possible-like it is not possible for man, in Tolkien's world to be immortal.

(Not that I find such a theory implausible-in fact I think it is a very plausible theory indeed, but I think it does not _fit_in_.)



> "why did Tolkien write this philosophical dialogue?"



One can only guess. I think it may have been to show what Finrod and some of the men of the time were like, but not only that to show the fallacy of mannish myths (Myths Transformed etc.) and mans views on his origins and history.


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## Inderjit S (Jul 30, 2004)

Also, for all you feminist, quasi-feminist and women (and men) in general-you want an example of not men defending women, but vice versa? Look no further then the case of the Parisian woman Sainte Genevieve rousing the women of Paris to repel the attacks of Atilla and his Huns.


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## Eriol (Jul 30, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> Ah--yes, of course, I understand that the Letters are from an earlier period-and I understand that you are claiming that Tolkien may have changed his mind (he often did) or at least he left the whole matter ambiguous (he often did) and allowed for us mere mortals to have fastidious, quote-heavy debates over this and that.



I wouldn't even go that far. I don't think he left the matter ambiguous; the records clearly support the "mortal men" position. 

My contention is a bit more abstruse, that he might be _intending to_ leave the matter ambiguous .



> But IMO Tolkien making Men out to be originally mortal verges too far away from the general story.



I agree. One of the things that would probably make Tolkien think twice about such a change is the overall _neatness_  of the "mortal men, immortal elves" notion. When I first became acquainted with it, I fell in love with it. I guess Tolkien probably felt the same way.

However, and especially late in his life, Tolkien was "adjusting" his mythology; he was adapting it to become a pre-Christian mythology. The change in the Orcs' origins, I believe, is very much focused on that; Tolkien couldn't accept his own mythology as "possibly true" (in a mythological sense, of course) while there were _Children of Ilúvatar_ immune to salvation, without any chance whatsoever of repentance. This, I think, is the main reason behind the shift in the account of Orcs' origins.

That is a well-documented shift. What I think _might_ be taking place, or about to take place, in Tolkien's mind, is a similar shift as regards the origins of Men -- and for the same reason, to make it more consistent with Christian mythology. Always, of course, leaving it pretty ambiguous .

It is hard to end such a debate as ours with a "we'll never know" . It's one of the first questions I would ask of Tolkien if I could meet him for some minutes. But at least now you know the background of my farfetched theory .

***

As for the matter of warrior women -- the status of all stories about it already belie the role of women. When people record stories of warrior women, they record it as an oddity; which it is. It is not impossible, of course; but it remains an oddity. There was only one culture, and a mythological culture to boot (the Amazones), in which women were the _standard_ warriors. Even the Gauls and Germans of Ancient History, of which many instances of warrior women were recorded, did not take that as a rule; while the women _defended their homes_ fiercely, they hardly took part in invasions. (Or at least that's my recollection of my readings about that period, please someone correct me if I'm wrong).


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## Lhunithiliel (Jul 31, 2004)

As for warrior -women and protectors -

The thing, IMO, is that women-worriors whenever fought it was to _protect_, while most wars and battles men have fouoght and fight, are to _conquer_.
This makes women-warriors much more _protectors_ than just fighters.

As for Elves-Men.
It is my opinion that the issue of _mortality - immortality_ should not be understood literally even when Tolkien himself calls them so. Because I view the "mortality" of Men as much more "immortal" than the "immortality" of Elves. After all, Arda is finite, and when it ceases to exist, with it go the Elves. While the Halls of Eru, where souls of Men go, are eternal as Eru himself.
Right?
Then... who's immortal?!
Because... I don't think this issue should be based upon "mortality-immortality" of the body, right? 

Besides, Elves you talk about taking them as physical individuals. 
In a way they are - _within_ the story. But in fact, these creatures have been created by Tolkien unlike the "common" knowledge of elves and fairies, with and for the purpose to actually "give flesh" and thus reveal those high qualities of the human character which humans have, but have either plainly forgotten about to exist ... or perhaps purposly hide away ... in modern times... 
Anyway, the point is that I believe Elves and Men are just the "two sides of the coin" and to discuss them as strictly separatle creatures is not very right.


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## Inderjit S (Jul 31, 2004)

> As for the matter of warrior women -- the status of all stories about it already belie the role of women. When people record stories of warrior women, they record it as an oddity; which it is. It is not impossible, of course; but it remains an oddity. There was only one culture, and a mythological culture to boot (the Amazones), in which women were the standard warriors



Yes, women who were warriors are generally famous as they were so rare and thus as you say, an exception to the rule. 



> However, and especially late in his life, Tolkien was "adjusting" his mythology; he was adapting it to become a pre-Christian mythology



Can you please elaborate on the "pre-Christian mythology" thing, I am pretty ignorant of this and it is always nice to learn something new.



> It is my opinion that the issue of mortality - immortality should not be understood literally even when Tolkien himself calls them so. Because I view the "mortality" of Men as much more "immortal" than the "immortality" of Elves. After all, Arda is finite, and when it ceases to exist, with it go the Elves. While the Halls of Eru, where souls of Men go, are eternal as Eru himself.



Yes; Men had ephemeral bodies (or "houses" or using Andreth's analogy, the body was an inn) but their fea, or spirit, lasted forever and was bound with Eru. The Elves remained on Arda, bound to it, until the end, and they did not know what was in store for them-but crucially their spirits could not be destroyed and were immortal. Men were immortal on earth, but not in the general scheme of things since their spirits would never die.



> thus reveal those high qualities of the human character which humans have, but have either plainly forgotten about to exist ... or perhaps purposly hide away ... in modern times



If you are talking about our lack of love for nature (love of nature was a very Elvish kind of thing) then you are right, Rousseau states that man is diverging from his roots as his industrialises and "improves himself" and that such a thing is undesirable and harmful to human beings in general. Morals have changed, and will change for better or worse.


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## Eriol (Jul 31, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> Can you please elaborate on the "pre-Christian mythology" thing, I am pretty ignorant of this and it is always nice to learn something new.



Basically, what I mean is this (and perhaps "pre-Christian mythology" was a misnomer; now that I think of it I want to call it "Christian pre-mythology" ):

Tolkien was a Christian, and therefore he believed in Christian mythology -- which, summarized, says "All things are created good; Man, therefore, was created good, _and_ endowed with free will, as it is one of the best things a being can have; free will means the ability to choose good or evil; Man, at a point in his history, chose evil ("the Fall"); and it was only after that point that death entered History."

Let us call this "the Christian account" (though obviously other faiths share it). That, in effect, is the message of the first chapters of Genesis. There are other myths there, and other messages, but for our discussion that's what is relevant.

Now, Tolkien wanted his own mythology to be a _possible_ mythology; and since he accepted the account given above as _fact_, his own mythology couldn't contradict that account. If it did, it would not be possible. 

Look at the problem of Orcs. When he first conceived of them (through words, as usual), they were corrupted Children of Ilúvatar; that is in accordance with the first part of the Christian account, that states that _all things were created good_. Melkor couldn't create evil beings; he could only corrupt good beings already in existence (We know this is a very common theme in Tolkien's works). So far so good. But later, he realized that this resulted in a problem; orcs without free will. For no matter how corrupted an orc is, if he has free will then he may choose good; Tolkien was left with two alternatives:

(a) Orcs had free will, and could indeed become good; but then the "Free Peoples" must be considered cruel, for they kill orcs at sight throughout the stories.

(b) Melkor had somehow, through conditioning, torture, whatever, eliminated the free will of orcs. But this gave too much power to Melkor; particularly since he would have to erase a trait given specifically by Eru, and not "just a trait" -- the _most important trait_, according to the Christian account and to his own mythology.

Tolkien, characteristically, chose the third alternative; he changed the story itself. Orcs became the result of a breeding of beasts (without free will) and Maiar (with free will, but who _chose_ evil). I'm sure Tolkien was well aware of the arguments (in Christian theology) why demons can't repent; even if he wasn't, there is no problem within Christianity to accept that proposition. And his myth then came one step closer to becoming "possible" (i.e., true in accordance to the "facts" of Christian mythology). 

I have no doubt (from both Morgoth's Ring and the Letters) that this "adjustment" between his mythology and Christianity was one of the main reasons behind that change (probably THE main reason).

And I think you see now how Andreth would fit into this scheme quite neatly. Because, in the Christian account, death came _after_ the Fall. It is an open question whether men were actually immortal or simply had never died in Eden; but surely the Fall came before any death. 

Note that an evolutionist, like me, can interpret "death" to mean _spiritual_ death; if I believe (and I do) that man shares ancestors with the beasts, then surely we come from a lineage that knew physical death. That is probably off-topic. The point is that Tolkien was no evolutionist, and probably thought that Genesis was, if not literally factual, at least "mythically factual"; that it told a true story through symbols. (That is my opinion too). And the story of Genesis is one in which death is a _result_ of the Fall. 

St. Paul's letters also touch upon the subject, as Thorin loves to remind us . "The wages of sin is death", St. Paul says; surely, it appears that if man had not sinned, he wouldn't die.



> If you are talking about our lack of love for nature (love of nature was a very Elvish kind of thing) then you are right, Rousseau states that man is diverging from his roots as his industrialises and "improves himself" and that such a thing is undesirable and harmful to human beings in general. Morals have changed, and will change for better or worse.



On the other hand, Aristotle (who lived much closer, in time, to Rousseau's "state of nature") said that man is the "politikon zoon", the political animal; and remember that "polis"=_city_. There is nothing more characteristically human than "industry", in a very general sense -- working with his hands to _change_ nature, and improve it from his viewpoint.

There is also the matter of defining "nature"...

But if we take as the paradigm Tolkien's opinions, as we surely should if we don't want to open an interminable discussion , while the Elves are an idealization of mankind, they are also individuals; and just as we need to grasp Tolkien's views of "nature" to fully understand what he was _idealizing_, we need to look at the individual Elves -- Galadriel, Fëanor, Finrod... -- in order to discuss them. To focus on one side of the elvish coin in detriment of the other is just as bad .


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## Inderjit S (Aug 1, 2004)

I understand what you are getting at now; Tolkien was trying to keep his Middle-Earthean mythology in sync with the Christian mythology (in certain respects) and thus the whole idea of death as a punishment for the sins of Men comes in. Andreth also mentions the belief of men that one day Eru would come to earth to help man, again keeping in sync with Christian mythology, and so we get a picture of quasi-Christianity in Middle-Earth, death through original sin and belief in avatars, or, rather, early predictions of the coming of Jesus. 

But, personally, I still do not agree with you, just too much of a shift from the general mythology, not enough factual evidence, the superfluity of Tolkien's immortality and all the reasons that I have pedantically articulated.



> On the other hand, Aristotle (who lived much closer, in time, to Rousseau's "state of nature") said that man is the "politikon zoon", the political animal; and remember that "polis"=city. There is nothing more characteristically human than "industry", in a very general sense -- working with his hands to change nature, and improve it from his viewpoint.



Of course; I do not wholly agree with Rousseau, Rousseau is after all kind of condescending and at times annoying, and pretty obsessed with Hobbes (I figure he was in love with him and only pretended to hate him ) and is as fallible as Plato, Aristotle or Tolkien, but he does have a point, or at least he is right to a certain extent-we may have "progressed" but such progression is not without cost. Adam Smith describes the need for man the "industrialise" pretty well too, though the 'Wealth of Nations' has to be one of the hardest books I have ever read in my life, economics is, as Stiglitz puts it overly-esoteric and damn hard to read about, and at times, (as Smith puts it) tedious, but necessarily so.



> On the other hand, Aristotle (who lived much closer, in time, to Rousseau's "state of nature")



Yes, of course, Aristotle's world was a lot different to Rousseau’s.
Aristotle also went through a great deal of editing and translating over the years, by figures such as Andronicus and Boethis, as well as the Arabic translations, and the fact that the Islamic scribes wished to juxtapose the Platonic and Aristotelian texts with Mohammedan (and also Arabic, Islam being, at the time pretty inchoate and amalgamated with some Arabic customs and practices i.e. Islamic misogyny, or to put it aptly anti-feminism, is not part of Mohammed's teaching but a part of the cultures which were instilled within Islam) theory and practices and so that fact that a lot of Greek and Roman texts went through a great deal of alteration through the years, either through translation, or so that it could "fit in" with a certain peoples views and theories (i.e the Islamic writers and the scholastic Christian writers who wished to integrate Aristotle to match their theories and conceptions), means we cannot take everything Aristotle said at face values. Though Aristotle was rejected by most Christian philosophers some years after, due to the materialistic nature of his theory and he, along with Plato etc. was castigated and not read by a lot of Christians for some time due to the fact that he was a pagan and therefore a sinner, or as Dante puts it in limbo for eternity. (This anti-Greek philosophers attitude lasted from about the time in which Christianity became "big" (i.e. with the end of the Roman Empire and the death of Attila and the ransom paid to him by Pope Leo I so that Attila would leave Italy; Attila’s "retreat" and death were seen as being products of divine intervention and Christianity thus established it's hegemony over Europe) to about the 12th century, when interest in Aristotle etc. was revived.)



> Look at the problem of Orcs. When he first conceived of them (through words, as usual), they were corrupted Children of Ilúvatar; that is in accordance with the first part of the Christian account



Actually, when they were first conceived they were bred from "subterranean heats and slime" (BoLT 2; Fall of Gondolin) (Sorry, I'm trying to out pedant the pedant )



> So far so good. But later, he realized that this resulted in a problem; orcs without free will. For no matter how corrupted an orc is, if he has free will then he may choose good; Tolkien was left with two alternatives:



Rather ironically, Tolkien's "reversion" was a partial reversion the original nature of Orks i.e. bestial.



> Tolkien's views of "nature" to fully understand what he was idealizing, we need to look at the individual Elves -- Galadriel, Fëanor, Finrod... -- in order to discuss them



Elves are of course individuals, and as heterogeneous as us, and so Tolkien's idealisations may have been multifarious i.e. each character had his or her good and bad points.


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## Eriol (Aug 1, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> I understand what you are getting at now; Tolkien was trying to keep his Middle-Earthean mythology in sync with the Christian mythology (in certain respects) and thus the whole idea of death as a punishment for the sins of Men comes in. Andreth also mentions the belief of men that one day Eru would come to earth to help man, again keeping in sync with Christian mythology, and so we get a picture of quasi-Christianity in Middle-Earth, death through original sin and belief in avatars, or, rather, early predictions of the coming of Jesus.
> 
> But, personally, I still do not agree with you, just too much of a shift from the general mythology, not enough factual evidence, the superfluity of Tolkien's immortality and all the reasons that I have pedantically articulated.



Yes, that's what I was getting at. (Andreth mention of the legend of Eru _entering_ Arda is pretty explicit). And to be honest, I don't know if I agree with me either . After all, mortal men/immortal elves is so very neat. Aesthetically, I'd much prefer it to be like that. (As I would prefer the "1st and 2nd Age flat earth account", it is very neat).

There are lots of reasons why the story shouldn't be changed. All I mean is that Tolkien is a tinkerer, and that he had a very powerful reason to _change_ the story, as opposed to all the reasons why he shouldn't change it. _For Tolkien_, it was important that his mythology should be "in sync" with Christianity. 

Personally, I'm of the opinion that it is not normal that things should always be normal ; and that it is not neat if the mythology is "too much" in sync with reality. There should be some oddities sprinkled around it. If the decision were up to me, I'd keep men as mortal. 



> ...we cannot take everything Aristotle said at face values.



There have been some advances on Aristotelian studies in the last century -- we know MUCH more of what he actually said than all of the guys you mentioned. Luckily .


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## Lhunithiliel (Aug 2, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> If you are talking about our lack of love for nature (love of nature was a very Elvish kind of thing) then you are right, Rousseau states that man is diverging from his roots as his industrialises and "improves himself" and that such a thing is undesirable and harmful to human beings in general. Morals have changed, and will change for better or worse.


To a great extent, yes, though not only "love for nature" is the thing I meant.

A lot more of the human virtues have been "forgotten" with time. 
Industrialization *is* a way of improvement, true, because this process involves and is in a way a reflection of the improvement and the development of the human mind. But it seems somehow a unilateral development - the materialistic trend ... people just thinking of how to make their lives easier and more comfortable ... It's sort of adapting us to new times and new environment - that's all.
But meanwhile, we seem to have been losing the essence of things.

I might be wrong, but when analysing human behaviour and attitude towards life itself, towards other individuals, towards the environment and towards our proper existance as well as towrads the surrounding us world in general, I think human minds have not achieved some remarkable "break through"!

We, that is ... our minds, seem to be still lead and governed by the "laws of the jungle" (if you know what I mean  ).
We still seem to strive for our survival on a physical level - that is preserve our lives at any cost. But this means - preserving the life of the physical body. 
Unfortunately, "soul" has become a word only, the essence of which seems to have been forgotten. 

Of course, "soul" is sth. that can have quite a lot of interpretations. But to me it is the "divine" character of a human, that _perfection_ a human was once designed to be, and that I think Tolkien represented in his Elves.


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## Ruinel (Aug 5, 2004)

Maikanare said:


> In _Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth_ an essay in HoME X, Tolkien notes about the Unwed Andreth that:
> [for quote... see first post]
> 
> I wonder why this is.
> ...


1) Andreth was beautiful in body and face. The chances of her being persued by Atani males is a given. 

2) I don't think it takes a lack of brains to get married. Just temporary insanity.

3) In Andreth's case, there was only one mate for her, and he died. She would have gladly had children with him, given the chance.

4) The vast majority of men, even today, want women who will compliment them, not show them up. Andreth was a very intelligent and strong woman. Most intelligent and strong women consider marriage not a priority in their lives. If it comes, it comes, and if it doesn't it's not a big deal. (I say "most".) 

5) True, Andreth could not be with her love. She loved only one, and he loved only her. He died and all hope to be together was lost. 
"Or moths (pity) candles, when the wind blows them out?" said Finrod. "Adaneth, I tell thee, Aikanar the Sharp-Flame loved thee. For thy sake now he wil never take the hand of any bride of his own kindred, but live alone to the end, remembering the morning in the hills of Dorthonion. But too soon in the North-wind his flame will go out! Forsight is given to the Eldar in many things not far off, though seldom of joy, and I say to thee thou shalt live long in the order of your kind, and he will go forth before thee and he will not wish to return." 

IOW, Finrod is telling Andreth (Adaneth) that his brother will die in battle and will not return to ME. He has chosen a life alone, because he loves Andreth only, and can't have her. 

**** There's another possiblility that is not on your list. 

Andreth was a strong and intelligent woman. I believe that only special men (Elven or Atan) are attracted to them, because they themselves are strong and comfortable with themselves. They don't look to control or opress these women, but to take them as peers and are proud to be with them. The majority of men (sorry fellas) are so insecure that they steer clear, respecting them from a far... but not wishing to be partners with them. 

I believe that Aegnor was a stong Elf. I think if Andreth had been Elf or Aegnor Man... that he'd have swept her up with no hesitation. 

Andreth _did_ shuck off the obligation of marriage because she could never love anyone but Aegnor. I believe she _did_ devote herself to study to bide her time on Earth. But I also think she was already intelligent.


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