The Role of Women in The Lord of the Rings

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

However, the context of Eowyn's marriage is clearly to suggest that she will return to a domestic sphere.

My point is that the men also return to a domestic sphere. Sam, Merry, and Pippin marry and settle down. Faramir makes a garden. After Sauron is defeated, warriors and heroic deeds are no longer required. Everyone can now move to the life they were fighting for.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

It strikes me that Mr. Underhill is clearly engaging in imaginative extrapolation of the text when he envisages a feisty wife for Faramir.

I think you're the one who's extrapolating, or else just plain inventing. Éowyn is a feisty character prior to marriage. There's no reason to suppose that her essential nature changes after she finds love with Faramir -- unless you're determined to view her as a sellout. Her first action after she agrees to Faramir's proposal is to contradict the Warden of the Houses when he releases her into Faramir's care: "Yet now that I have leave to depart, I would remain." Her turn from death and slaying to become a healer and "lover of all things that grow and are not barren" is part of a wider motif of a spring flowering in Middle-earth with the passing of the Shadow. The White Tree blossoms, the Mallorn grows in the Shire, babies are born.

As to your comments regarding Rosie, well, I'll chalk them up to your self-admitted snappiness. Suffice to say that I hope you aren't suggesting that her role as wife and mother at large is somehow dishonorable or shameful.

Lastly, perhaps you ought to at least toss out the number of the letter you reference so that interested parties can get some context, instead of just dropping veiled suggestions that Tolkien was a raging mysogynist. Who knows? Maybe the prof had lemon with his tea when he was composing that day.