[mark12_30]

With regard to Aragorn and Arwen: remember that when Aragorn was twentysomething he met Arwen in the woods, and Elrond figured out why he was starry eyed. He was still under Elrond's authority at that time. Here's Elrond's quote:

"Many years of trial lie before you. You shall neither have wife, nor bind any woman to you in troth, until your time comes and you are found worthy of it."
'Then Aragorn was troubled, and he said, "Can it be that my mother has spoken of this?"
"No indeed, " said Elrond. Your own eyes have betrayed you. But I do not speak of my daughter alone. You shall be betrothed to no man's child as yet. ..."

Then (after Galadriel set Aragorn up, and Elrond learned of it) Elrond tells Aragorn this: (I wonder if he was thinking of his brother Elros):
"Maybe it has been appointed so, that by my loss the kingship of men may be restored. Therefore, though I love you, I say to you: Arwen Undomiel shall not diminish her life's gracve for less cause. She shall not be the bride of any man less than the King of both Gondor and Arnor."

Aragorn accepted the challenge to make Arwen the queen of Arnor and Gondor. To do that, he's got to be a King, and he's got some footwork to do to make that happen.

Beren's challenge was not to make Luthien a queen, but to burglarize or otherwise obtain a Silmaril. Footwork involved was grueling but apolitical: go, get jewel, return.

In addition, Thingol's challenge was designed to destroy Beren and get rid of him, and Luthien joined in Beren's quest to avoid losing him. I don't think that he could have fulfilled the quest without her.

In contrast, Elrond's challenge was intended to raise Aragorn up and challenge him to come into his inheritance in the fullest sense: that of freeing Middle-Earth. And if Arwen had gone with Aragorn, would it have helped him in his quest?

Arwen's gifting, it seems to me, lies more in "watching over him in thought from afar", like Galadriel. I can't imagine Arwen turning Aragorn into a werewolf, or herself into a bat. It's not her style. She does Osanwe, not skin-changing. So would she really have been helpful if she had physically come long on the quest? Or was she more useful behind the lines? I tend to think the latter.

(We don't see Galadriel trooping off with the Fellowship either, and we don't expect her to. She belongs in the woods, wielding hre ring, doing Osanwe, sending Halbarad, etc.)

So, do I doubt that Aragorn and Arwen were physically involved before Aragorn was crowned? Yes; for one thing, they both knew the conventions, Aragorn having been raised by Elrond and not by men; for another, Aragorn accepted Elrond's challenge to make Arwen a queen; and for a third, Aragorn and Arwen were not going off together in peril, wanderings, or war or other forms of duress mentioned by Tolkien in his discussion.

Luthien: to love is to give; to serve; greater love has no man (or elf-woman) than this: to lay down one's life for another.

Arwen: Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Both true.