littleman, I know you too well by now to seriously accuse you of being obtuse, but I don't think that your interpretation of Tolkien's time is really in sync with the conflict between the Ents and the Entwives. Furthermore, I think the said interpretation isn't worded too well. I could hardly call you sexist, but the quotation I provide below just rubs me the wrong way.
Quote:
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Back to Tolkien's era and setting: it was one in which the men were the professors, smoking pipes, going for walks, drinking 'heathily', discussing 'interesting' things, while the women were at home cleaning up, talking about mundane every day things, making the home clean, orderly, and secure as they needed it.
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Fist of all, women
drank back then, of that I have little doubt. In fact, judging from the books I've read on the subject, it seems that women drank
more in Tolkien's heyday, than they do today, which doesn't surprise me.
Furthermore, I have serious issue with the statement that housewives of those days held conversations on "mundane every day things." I am willing to bet that some of those scholarly chaps from Oxford were themselves mundane when compared to some witty young thing that ironed their shirt and whatnot. Just because someone is a housewife doesn't mean that she isn't an interesting human being with her own unique perspective on the world. My grandmamán stayed at home to raise four daughters (nevermind that Stalin's need for a workforce gave women ample career opportunities in the USSR), and never had a career, but I have yet to find a better conversationalist and a more passionate connossieur of poetry, and I go to Duke, for crissakes.
Going back to the Entwives; I, myself, doubt that they were some sort of negative commentary on gender per se, rather a commentary on how some relationships, or certain aspects of said relationships, just "don't work out" While I agree with Squatter that Tolkien's experiences in his marriage are mostly none of our business, I would guess that Sharkey's quote is related to them, and it strikes me as both resigned and good-humoured.