Gimli and Galadriel

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

It most certainly was not love, not the kind of love a husband gives to his wife anyway. You are looking at it from a modern mentality. In the kind of mindset the noble of Middle-Earth had in the end of the Third Age, a kind more abundant in the Middle-Ages too, beautiful ladies -- especially graceful ones, like Galadriel -- were respected and praised by all men, for their beauty and gracefulness. This was all. Gimli, I am sure, had no feelings of love for her any more than that.

Remember the words between Eomer and Gimli?

Eomer: 'I have seen her; and I will not say that she is the fairest lady who walks the earth.'

Gimli: 'Then I must fetch my axe.'

Eomer: '... (something about Arwen) and I say that she is more fair than anything else.'

Gimli: 'Then you are forgiven. For you have chosen the Evening; but my love is given rather to the Morning.'

(My quotes are never very precise. My bookshelf is a long walk away from my computer [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img])

Eomer seemed to share the same feelings as Gimli, but instead of for Galadriel, for Arwen. Yet Eomer was certainly not 'in love' with Arwen. He was simply applying the above to her, as Gimli was doing to Galadriel.