LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 05 - The Window on the West

[Mithalwen]

[QUOTE=davem
Yet in this passage we see also, perhaps, a slightly less admirable side to Faramir - a side which perhaps Eowyn will play some part in redeeming him of - his classification of Men into three ‘classes’ (with his own people in the ‘top’ class). He judges other men as being ‘high’, ‘middle’ & ‘lower’ - the Class system we know so well in all its glory!. Yet Faramir, through his love of Eowyn, will marry one of a ‘lower’ class & so learn the error of his ways. [/QUOTE]


I think that this is too harsh. Stating the division made in lore is not condoning it - in fact he points out how meaningless it has become. And he is hardly slumming it by marrying Eowyn since they are cousin to some degree through Morwen of Lossarnach - not close kin, but close enough for the relationship to have been acknowledged by Imrahil, another "true" Numenorean type....