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In fact it's my understanding, from HoME, that much of the Silmarillion material predates the LotR.
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It does, pretty mucg everything in HoME I-V excepting the latter work on the Lays in III.
Also a few points/sources that may not have been mentioned:
Laws and Customes among the Eldar: therein in [ somwhere !] we read that women of the Eldar could fight quite nicely, but rarely did unless difending their homes or in an emergency.
Also healers tended not to fight, as it detracted from their ability to heal on a psychic/energetic sort of level it seems.
The very first quote in the 'gems from the Letters' thread: bears on 'Galadriel as Amazon' in Aman.
Another example of prominent women are the Haladin and Haleth.
Personally i found Helen's submarine analogy to be applicable, if only on a sub-concious sort of level for JRRT. Aslo as regards Arwen in the FotR, I am sure Aragorn would be as displeased by the idea as Elrond. It would be crazy. Not because she could not have held her own, but because it would confuse the heck out of poor Aragorn, and possibly Arwen too.
Males were most suitable in the fellowship for different reasons in each race, but they all boil down to the same set of generalized gender roles. Generalizations, not absolutes, as Eowyn plainly shows in the slaying of the Lord of the Ringwraiths.
lindil bows out ...