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Originally Posted by Lalwendė
I think I know what you're getting at Legate but I'm not sure so let me pass something by you. The way I see it is this: in Middle-earth we see rulers and consorts where the consort is patently more powerful than the ruler e.g. Thingol and Melian, Celeborn and Galadriel. However, the more powerful one in the partnership does not 'over-rule' or dominate the less powerful partner. I suppose a real world analogy might be Margaret Thatcher who was often portrayed by satirists as being horrible to her husband and he was often portrayed as a tiny little man in comparison to her.
It is not that such women treat their husbands as having greater authority, but that they have the good grace to treat their marriage as an equal partnership and not 'boss' their husband so much that he appears ineffective and 'unmanly'....alright I know I'm opening up lines of humour here...  But maybe, just perhaps, this shows that Tolkien had an idealised view of women as being balanced people who would be more willing to show the grace to be equals rather than the boss? Or does it show that Tolkien thought that achieving the perfect balance of male/female (getting a bit Jungian now) was the proper way of leadership? He is not afraid to show the softer sides of Aragorn or Faramir, is he? |
Just to confirm for possible readers, yeah, that's just what I had in mind. And to the questions you posed, I think both the points are possible, who knows what would Professor say to us, but perhaps he felt it like this?
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories
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