[Idhril]

At what age do the Elves reach adolescence and adulthood?

[Anna]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that elves reach their adolescence at the age of 50 and then need another 50 years to reach adulthood. Hmm, can´t recall where I read it..... Perhaps it was in LACE?

Anyone else?

[Mara]

[SilverMoonLady]

Just my two cents, and I'm just adding to the question, but are we talking about physical maturity, social/cultural maturity, or both?

[Andreth]

I'll cut and paste the section of LACE about this so you guys can read it and see what you think. 50-100 years is what he says is the age of maturity but, Mara, you're certainly well founded to suspect that it could have been another one of the many things that people quote half a line from or take completely out of context and say, 'here's what Tolkien meant by that'. Especially concerning LACE. There are things like Elves not wanting to have sex after a certain age or that Elves are automatically wedded whenever they have sex that are ideas promoted and furthered when LACE is taken out of context.

On those two ideas in particular, if you read those sections of LACE in their entirety, it reads more like that Elves stopped having the desire to *have children* after a certain time even though their bodies were more than capable of continuing to procreate, and that Elves were not considered wedded until after they had sex *on their wedding night after having taken vows*, like the consummation of marriages in different religions today. That the ceremonies of the betrothal and the formal wedding were not what was important, it was only after the act of bodily union combined with the vows that the marriage became indissoluble. Like a consummated marriage. In times of strife the ceremonies could be forgone and only the vows and bodily union undertaken to form a marriage.

But I'm going off on one of my pet peeve tangents again. Sorry. Here's the entire section from LACE about Elven vs. Mortal maturity.

If anyone wants a full copy of Laws and Customs of the Eldar, just send me a private message and I'll be happy to send it to you since that's one I've got already scanned and handy. I would post the whole thing here, but with the Finwe and Miriel part it ends up being about 40-50 pages long. I wouldn't want to be responsible for BB's hospitalization.

Anna

A£lfwine's Preamble

The Eldar grew in bodily form slower than Men, but in mind more swiftly. They learned to speak before they were one year old; and in the same time they learned to walk and to dance, for their wills came soon to the mastery of their bodies. Nonetheless there was less difference between the two Kindreds, Elves and Men, in early youth; and a man who watched elf children at play might well have believed that they were the children of Men, of some fair and happy people. For in their early days elf children delighted still in the world about them, and the fire of their spirit had not consumed them, and the burden of memory was still light upon them. (*1)

This same watcher might indeed have wondered at the small limbs and stature of these children, judging their age by their skill in words and grace in motion. For at the end of the third year mortal children began to outstrip the Elves, hastening on to a full stature while the Elves lingered in the first spring of childhood. Children of Men might reach their full height while Eldar of the same age were still in body like to mortals of no more than seven years. (*2) Not until the fiftieth year did the Eldar attain the stature and shape in which their lives would afterwards endure, and for some a hundred years would pass before they were full-grown.

The Eldar wedded for the most part in their youth and soon after their fiftieth year. They had few children, but these were very dear to them. Their families, or houses, were held together by love and a deep feeling for kinship in mind and body; and the children needed little governing or teaching. (*3) There were seldom more than four children in any house, and the number grew less as ages passed; but even in days of old, while the Eldar were still few and eager to increase their kind, Feanor was renowned as the father of seven sons, and the histories record none that surpassed him. (*4)

[BittenBuggy]

[slydog]

i read somewhere that elves and men (lesser and numenorean) have similar childhood years but afterwards elves barely age at all.
LACE makes much more sense