Quote:
Originally Posted by Gothmog, LoB
Celeborn also has supreme authority over all the domains of Galadriel by the right of his wife despite the fact that he is inferior to her in mind and (spiritual) strength (just as Elwe Singollo clearly was inferior to Melian). But in Tolkien's world the men rule, not the women. The consorts of kings - even Galadriel - restrict themselves to the roles of wife, mother, and counselor, not monarch. In Doriath and Lórien Thingol and Celeborn made the decisions, not their wives. They were asked about their opinion and usually the ruler did follow their counsel (or should better have done so) but neither Galadriel nor Melian actually ruled.
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I'll come back to the other points later, but this view seems egregiously off the mark. To say that "Celeborn has supreme authority" misses the mark by quite a measure. If anything, Galadriel and Celeborn were coeval in rule of their land, and in everything else, Galadriel was the superior, a leader among leaders. She called the White Council, it was her power in conjunction with her Ring that stayed the hands of time in Lothlorien, and it was Galadriel at Dol Guldur who "threw down its walls and laid bare its pits, and the forest was cleansed," at the end of the War of the Ring. Galadriel let Celeborn parade around with his shiny army while she did the major work in Middle-earth.
