[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

As promised, this post has been edited to expand my argument and hopefully offer some evidence in support.

I think I shall start with a brief consideration of Helen's quotation and its applicability to the case of Beren and Lúthien. Although in the published Silmarillion Beren is a Man, at the time of the Lost Tales he was a Gnome, Beren of the Noldoli; in which case the Elven marriage would apply equally to both of them. In any case it's by no means unusual for people to honour the customs of their spouses-to-be, and after all it doesn't sound like so very unpleasant a way to tie the knot.

I think that in many cases a great deal too much is made of Tolkien's Catholicism. Whilst he was clearly a committed Christian this does not mean that he sat down and compared every word he wrote to Catholic doctrine to see if the two were compatible. He was a free-thinking idealist, with a clearly defined sense of honour and moral understanding, which meant that he was quite capable of making up his own mind about moral issues; and in some cases, horror of horrors, his writing diverged from the minor tenets of his faith. This is by no means unusual: John Betjeman, a contemporary of Tolkien's and another Oxford man, suffered a great deal of anguish in trying to reconcile some of his views with his Catholicism. I should also note that the Lost Tales were written when Tolkien was still in his twenties, and I think I can say with relative authority that men of that age can find some of the stricter moral codes a little difficult to obey, no matter how noble their spirits. Also, at the time of the first composition of The Tale of Tinúviel in 1917, Tolkien was himself a man who had seen war and bloodshed on a scale unequalled at any previous time in human history. I mention this because there's nothing like seeing lives wasted, literally cast away for nothing, to make some of society's moral opinions about sex seem rather petty and unimportant; and let's not be under any illusions about this, marriage is for the benefit of other people: to announce and solemnise a commitment which already exists in the eyes of the two people involved. Without that commitment, and without love, marriage is a pointless and hollow institution, and its vows are nothing. We only need look at Aredhel and Eöl to see where a loveless union will lead, as I have mentioned in another of Lush's rather entertaining threads.

In this respect, it doesn't matter how passionate and physical Beren and Lúthien were without a marriage ceremony per se, because whatever they were doing together sprang from love. Not infatuation, momentary attraction or one too many miruvors, but love at its purest. From the moment that they first met they were joined for life, and there was nothing that they or anyone else could do about it. Similarly there was no need for an official declaration of this fact until the time was convenient: actions speak louder than words, however solemn and godly those words may be.

That's not to say that I agree with this reading of the passage in question, though. The Silmarillion also says that this meeting took place "...near dawn on the eve of Spring...", and the phrase "...and she loved him", whilst it can refer to a physical act of love, can equally mean that at that moment she fell in love with him, with all the associated birds suddenly appearing and so forth (to my mind, this passage refers to a window of no more than fifteen minutes, and I'm not sure that Tolkien was the sort to write a quick knee-trembler into his epic romance). The interesting part of this is the timing: just before dawn on the first day of spring is a very significant time of year. I shan't belabour the symbolism of rebirth and fertility implicit in this setting, rather I shall quote the much racier version of their first real meeting from the Lay of Leithian:

Then stared he wild in dumbness bound
at silent trees, deserted ground;
he blindly groped across the glade
to the dark trees' encircling shade,
and, while she watched with veiléd eyes,
touched her soft arm in sweet surprise.
Like startled moth from deathlike sleep
in sunless nook or bushes deep
she darted swift, and to and fro
with cunning that elvish dancers know
about the trunks of trees she twined
a path fantastic. Far behind
enchanted, wildered and forlorn
Beren came blundering, bruised and torn

"What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?" Where is our chaste professor here? The later version, as used in the Silmarillion works better within the framework of the story, because it ties in much more readily with the idea that it was Beren and Lúthien's fate to meet thus and love one another, and in any case the romantic in me likes to see the sudden spark in the rewritten account; but the earlier work seems more human, and perhaps more realistic. Although Tolkien seems to have intended for Lúthien to be afraid of Beren's rough appearance, as in the earlier prose version, there's something more playful about the language that suggests a game that I think we can all recognise. "Ooh la la" indeed.

I'm very much in accord with Lush's comments about Lúthien's personality. She's definitely the more rebellious of the pair, and she's certainly no thrall to convention. It is Beren who insists that he must complete Thingol's insulting mission, whereas she is perfectly happy to defy her father and to live in exile if it means that she can be with the man she loves. Beren is the more bound by social propriety, and he does have more to lose (Thingol is not the sort of person with whom one should trifle), although there's probably an element of male pride as well: nobody likes to decline a challenge.

Now I come to the tricky part of this whole discourse, because I have to bring in morality and religion. Sex within marriage is tied very strongly to the concept behind the Roman church's attitude towards contraception, which can essentially be summed up as "No copulation without procreation", in deference to Genesis II 28: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth", and given that this precludes both abortion and contraception, marriage is the most sensible and logical state in which to do one's multiplication. I must stress that this is not necessarily my opinion, but that of Tolkien's Church as I see it.

However, the Bible also says

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal

(I Corinthians XIII:1)

All loveless states and actions are as nothing, and Tolkien has extrapolated this in his portrayal of Beren and Lúthien, although he has almost certainly stepped beyond the bounds of official doctrine in so doing. What use is a ceremony when you're imprisoned by Sauron, or trying to sneak into Morgoth's fortress? It takes a lot more than a social convention to keep a relationship going under that sort of strain, and without Thingol's blessing the marriage could not be concluded anyway. In this both of the lovers are concerned, so they act as a married couple would and share the trial, which Beren would certainly have failed alone. As one saying goes, marriage isn't all about gazing into each others' eyes, but looking confidently in the same direction.

This brings me to my idea of what Tolkien probably did find morally objectionable, and the spirit that probably lies behind the traditional morals of wedlock: there is no joy or happiness to be had in loveless and mechanical fornication, which is the only form of intercourse, especially in the form of adultery, which is specifically banned in the Commandments. My objection (it would be beyond my ambit to presume what Tolkien's was, although I like to think that it was quite similar) is that such activity reduces the union to nothing more than the gratification of a bodily impulse, no more redolent of joy or love than the scratching of a troublesome itch. At several points in his works Tolkien demonstrates that it is love, not marriage that is important, because when life gets difficult and everything seems against you what will not keep you going is a piece of paper with some signatures on it and the Church's approval. Later, in Aldarion and Erendis, and later still in The Shibboleth of Fëanor, Tolkien described marriages in collapse (in the former because of a husband's inability to choose either his wife or the sea, in the latter because of a wife's unwillingness to return from the halls of Mandos to her husband and son), and it is clear from these accounts that he understood what sacrifices had to be made to maintain a successful union. Love is the only impetus that will force someone to make those sacrifices. What tragedies befell because of the bitterness that this inspired in the children of those unions? How would Fëanor have behaved in the presence of his mother's moderating influence? And people think that Tolkien didn't write about real relationships. "What fools these mortals be"

[ February 14, 2003: Message edited by: Squatter of Amon Rudh ]