Tolkien generally avoided anything close to a direct discussion or acknowledgment of sex however in some of his papers he talked about how Elves pretty much stopped after the first few centuries together and they were extremely monogamous. Finwë was quite odd for taking a second wife.
The Dwarven population was only 2/3rds male and only 1/3rd female and many women never found a mate. They married for life. Dwarven Women did have beards. They tended to not have many kids but they were long lived.
Hobbits apparently happily copulated and reproduced often if food was available. They appear to be a lusty race of short humans.
Humans were human of course though the Dúnedain would start late and often have but a few kids. Oddly enough they were the best off and best educated of humans and had population problems like to parts of modern Europe.
You forgot the Woses. Everybody always forgets the Woses. But they were as lusty as hobbits, I’m sure.
I refuse to discuss Orc sex life except to say that it was sure to be disgusting, but I’ll comment on Dwarfs. I’m morally certain (that is, I believe without a smidge of proof) that the imbalance in the male/female sex ratio was due to bad engineering – or, rather, reverse-engineering – by Aule. I’m sure when he decided to make his own race of apprentices, he went to the, ah, “file copies” on humanoids that already existed somewhere and made some tweaks for his own purposes. But I can’t believe he intended there to be so little sexual dimorphism, or to create a species that was inherently doomed to start a downward spiral in terms of population.
The Ents are a different story. I think they were always meant, by Eru, to be extinct or nearly so by the time Men were dominant.
Woses probably had plenty of free time to indulge in the entertainment of sex. They were fairly simple and successful hunter-gathers with some minor magical powers. I’m guessing they were more lusty than the Hobbits even.
Please note that the older Tolkien got the “cleaner” or more chaste the Silmarillion got. Originally Luthien and Beren consummated there love out of wedlock.
That reminds me of a question that has always bothered me. Should I start a new thread?
What happened to the Entwives?
Is that a stupid question? Because that question has bothered me since Day 1, and when I was a kid, it made me positively miserable to think of those poor old Ents with no wives. I haven’t read anything but the trilogy and the Hobbit (and don’t intend to), so is there anything in the other books that tells?
Also, what is the purpose of the story of the Ents? It is a really jarring story - when everyone else is moving to a new future, be it in another world or be it repairing the damage done by Sauron, the Ents are coming to their end.
That is what I get for not clicking your links. I went searching for an essay I recalled and found the one that you had already read. :smack: Well, he did a better job of explaining your question than I can.
Treebeard thought the Shire was a likely location as far as the Entwives would like it. Most of the Entwives had first moved across the Anduin to where the Brown lands were at the time of the books. They were possibly all killed when this once fertile land was devastated by war.
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Tolkien ruminated on Entwives and decided that they were probably gone or at least that the Ents would never find them. This is not canon and I dislike that answer very much, but it was his thoughts on the subject.
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Conjecture: I think there were Huorns in the Old Forest and maybe even some treeish Ents. I suspect that a few Entwives survived and the Elven song that sang of their reunion was to come true eventually.
ETA: I keep just missing your posts.
Thanks. I don’t just dislike the idea, I hate it. It really spoils the Ents for me…as does the Scouring of the Shire spoile some things for me. I understand Tolkien had a point in both cases but they both seem pretty tacked-on to me. Oh, I wrote this huge fantasy novel, better stick in a moral lesson and shut them all up.
I’m going to bookmark that other thread and read it in detail at home!
It seems clear that orcs reproduced in more or less human fashion, as they were capable of (ewwwww) interbreeding with them.
In a sense you must be right, since everything happens according to Eru’s will (given that he’s, you know, God, and the author was a devout conservative Catholic). But JRRT was also big on free will, and the implied destruction of the Entwives results from their abandonment of their roles as shepherds to the trees (or wives of shepherds to the trees) in favor of tending gardens and planting fields - in other words, “lust for mastery.”
Actually, technically, despite their own self-classification, the Ents were not Children of Eru, any more than the Eagles. The Ents and the Eagles were actually each other’s analog…the Eagles were made as the kings and guardians of the kelvar, the animals, while the Ents were made as the kings and guardians of the olvar, or plants.
You’re welcome. I hate to think all the Entwives are gone. I like to think Quickbeam with the aid of some Elves and the King’s scouts would find them and reunite the Ents to the Entwives.
I don’t understand the Scouring of the Shire dislike. It showed the Hobbits taking charge and the ascent of Merry, Sam and Pippin. It also showed how much Frodo sacrificed to save his world. What was the moral lesson who perceived?
BTW: Strange thing, the Scouring of the Shire was conceived from very early on and changed mainly in the key player being Lotho to Saruman.
The loss of the Entwives is hardly out of place. “The Lord of the Rings” is largely about the death of magic and the end of the age of legend. The scouring of the Shire is integral to the story as well. The villains of the new age will not be colossal forces of supernatural evil, but petty tyrants and vindictive madmen.
I know, but I don’t read it that way. I read fantasy for entertainment. It’s like this. If you can impart your moral lesson to me without jarring me out of the story, I can accept that. These two things stood out strongly to me and took me out of the story a bit - it became clear he was preaching at these moments.
What Exit?, it was certainly a proper ending, it just has always bothered me a lot. It’s probably more true than most. I always like to see the few glimpses of the ol’ Gaffer, though, he’s probably my favorite minor char.
I agree. But I don’t think Lord of the Rings is meant to be terribly happy overall. If there’s a moral lesson in the story (which I don’t think is necessarily true), it’s that you have to snatch bits and moments of happiness from a world that generally sucks.
One of my favorite moment in the story is very telling on this matter. It’s in Book II, when the Fellowship has left Lothlorien and are in boats on a river I’d be able to remember the name of if I weren’t senile. Gimli and Legolas, you’ll recall, were not friends or anything close to it before Lothlorien, but became very close during their time there. Anyway, Gimli begins to weep as they leave, as he realizes that he has seen the most beautiful and wonderful place that exists in Middle-earth–and that the BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME of the quest is that everyone there will leave the continent never to return. He’s seeing the end of the elven age of magic and wonder (and probably knows, whether he ever says so aloud, that the Dwarves, too, are not long for the world). It’s absolutely beautiful, and absolutely heartbreaking.
