Entwives

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well now this is cause for much futher discussion, although few seem to have taken up the conundrum.

Was Tolkien's comment about the difficulty of distinguishing between dwarven genders one of his mighty niggles, that he never went back and erased the seeming implausability, but instead posited reasons for it?

Did Tolkien ascribe to an all-inclusive meaning of "Father" similar to that once generally accepted of "Men", that as "men" included women "Father" must include 'mother'? (An interpretation famously repudiated and rejected over these last fifty years or so, at least by some.)

Or is this simply another instance where Tolkien did not feel the need to mention any of the females? After all, Tolkien never bothered to give names to Undomiel's daughters. And the family trees do not always name all the female descendents, simply reading "3 daughters". Perhaps Tolkien felt that only the Seven Fathers, as the forebearers, merited mention? After all, he had that prime model of world creation before him, the Bible. Where did Seth find his mate?

From merely an assumptive position, one could say that once Eru granted the Dwarves sentience (as opposed to being Aule's mini-marionettes), then he also allowed a procreative state and thus gender, which could not happen in the form Aule originally created. Thus, perhaps a few of the Seven Dwarven Fathers did indeed become mothers, and why there is such a similarity in features between the two sexes. Perhaps that is where the phrase 'bearding the lilly' comes from.