[Elentari]

[Gypsum]

Next time I'll know to never travel without a handy copy of LACE. anyway, I think the justification for only having children during peacetime is the Elvish theory that children should be brought up by two loving parents and enjoy a blissful, happy childhood. If you're in the middle of a war, you're not going to have that. Chances are Dad will be off fighting and there is a substantial risk of him getting killed. And the Enemy might assault your kingdom and kill you or make you a thrall. This is not what any Elf would want to put his or her children through. I also recall that LACE said that childbearing and childrearing took A LOT of energy (well, duh) and took a lot out of the fear of the parents. If you're focused on a fighting a war, you're can't focus on other things, like children or apparently sex for that matter.

However, some DID have children during the Wars of Beleriand. The Sil describes Gil-galad as Fingon's young son, so he was probably born in M-e. Now, that is canonically dubious since Chris Tolkien said that he maybe should not have said in the Sil that Gil-galad was a son of Fingon, but even if you take that as your canon, that prolly puts him in Finarfin's line, which was another place Tolkien was thinking of placing him. He is still someone born in M-e. I think Gwindor might also have been born in M-e. And certainly Dior and Earendil were born in M-e, and their mothers were Elves. Sex and children happened. Just not often.

People are right..... War poses the risk that your entire line will get wiped out and if you have no heirs or very few heirs, succession becomes a problem. Evolutionary-wise, you should have MORE children during wartime. But I don't think Tolkien was thinking in this way. How much do the laws of evolution apply to an immortal race anyway?

[Alassante]

I am not as versed as most people on this board in Tolkien's work but I have some thoughts that are once again....my opinion.

1) Saying that elves didn't have sex before marriage and only had it with one person and then referring back to the comment of them being "perfect beings". I think it is wrong to say that because if you marry young and you become a widow, are you saying that it is wrong to remarry and have sex and children, etc. It doesn't make you a perfect being to only have sex after marriage and/or with one person.

2) Elves not having children during wars: I can see the thought and theory behind this being a good idea. But at the same time, if you are at the evilest of times such as war, should you not have some beauty in life to counter the horror. And this goes along with the thought of sex not just being physical. If you are in a war, wouldn't it be nice to know that you were going home to a place of comfort. If the world were to stop having all items of beauty: sex, love, children, art, music, etc., everytime there was a war - what would you be fighting for anyway? Ask any man in Iraq if their child doesn't influence their feelings about war, I would think they would tell you that they fight so their children have a place of peace to grow up in. They aren't there for some family in two states over. They are there for their country and their own family. I wouldn't imagine any of them would say they would want the US to stop having children while we are at war. That's a strange concept to me.

3) Elves not having children after a certain time because it causes their 'fea' to diminish - anyone who has a child (which I do) will tell you that every child sucks a certain amount of energy and life out of you just having one. BUT and this is a big BUT, they give you so much in return it is worth it. At the end of the day, you may be more tired and some days you feel lifeless and old. But then there are the times where your child brings more to your spirit than you can ever imagine. To have a child is to lose part of yourself. You have to lose it to give it to someone else - the child. In return. however. you get a different but just as wonderful. if not more wonderful. part of yourself. I had my son when I was 18 so I gave up so much that most 18 yr olds had but I got back so much more than I gave up. Now does everyone feel that it is worth it to give up? Probably not. That is why there are some people that choose not to have kids. But ask any mother or father if they have as much energy as before their kids and they will laugh in your face. Ask them if it is worth it - most would say yes.

I guess basically what I am saying is while elves seem to be Tolkien's idea of a perfect being, I am not sure I agree if they follow the guidelines/rules of LACE. Plus Tolkien was a great writer but I think that he would even say to us today, being a good writer requires creativity. So that being said, is it creative to live by these rules to the letter?

Just a thought and an opinion. Feel free to ignore either or both!

[Gypsum]

My previous one or two posts were reiterations of what Tolkien wrote in LACE and his reasoning therein. They are not my opinion. I in fact disagree with Tolkien's somewhat antedeluvian ideas of sex and marriage, but whatever. They are being imposed on fictional characters, so I'm happy to go along with it since these fictional characters aren't complaining. You can say that you are not sure if Elves follow the rules of LACE, but I am going to assume that for the most part they do and they think these rules are important, since Tolkien said they do, and he created them.

When I am playing around in Middle-earth with fic, my general rule is that I abide by Tolkien's rules. You can write AU or change things if you want, that's fine, but I like gluing myself to canon and to the laws of his universe. If his Elves don't have sex outside of marriage, well, fine, okay, then they don't have sex outside of marriage. They are Tolkien's idea of near-perfect beings, not mine or anyone else's. Therefore they can be whatever Tolkien wanted them to be. He created this world and I only visit it now and then. Dude, if we imposed my values on Middle-earth, Gondor would become like a hippie commune/socialist/democratic republic, and then it would not be Gondor. I think that would be kinda dumb and Tolkien would be kickboxing in his grave.

[sindohte]

Get decided to post this bit from LACE directly so that everyone could at least be on the same page in terms of source material. However as always, the opinion of the reader may vary wildly

*******

As for the begetting and bearing of children: a year passes between the begetting and the birth of an elf-child, so that the days of both are the same or nearly so, and it is the day of begetting that is remember year by year. For the most part these days come in the Spring. It might be thought that, since the Eldar do not (as Men deem) grow old in body, they may bring forth children at any time in the ages of their lives. But this is not so. For the Eldar do indeed grow older, even if slowly: the limit of their lives is the life of Arda, which though long beyond the reckoning of Men is not endless, and ages also. Moreover their body and spirit are not separated but coherent. As the weight of the years, with all their changes of desire and thought, gathers upon the spirit of the Eldar, so do the impulses and moods of thir bodies change. This the Eldar mean when they speak of their spirits consuming them; and they say that ere Arda ends all the Eldalie on earth will have become as spirits invisible to mortal eyes, unless they will to be seen by some among Men into whose minds they may enter directly.

Also the Eldar say that in the begetting, and still more in the bearing of children, great share and strength of their being, in mind and in body, goes forth than in the making of mortal children. For these reasons it came to pass that the Eldar brought forth few children; and also that their time of generation was in their youth or earlier life, unless strange and hard fates befell them. But at whatever age they married, their children were born within a short space of years after their wedding (Footnote - Short as the Eldar reckoned time. In mortal count there was often a long interval between the wedding and the first child-birth, and even longer between child and child). For with regard to generation the power and the will are not among the Eldar distinguishable. Doubtless they would retain for many ages the power of generation, if the will and desire were not satisfied; but with the exercise of the power the desire soon ceases, and the mind turns to other things. The union of love is indeed to them great delight and joy, and the 'days of children', as they call them, remain in their memory as the most merry in life; but they have many other powers of body and mind which their nature urges them to fulfil.

Thus, although the wedded remain so for ever, they do not necessarily dwell or house together at all times; for without considering the chances and searations of evil days, wife and husband, albeit united, remain person individual having each gifts of mind and body that differ. Yet it would seem to any of the Eldar a grievous thing if a wedded pair were sundered during the bearing of a child, or while the first years of its childhood lasted. For which reason the Eldar would beget children only in days of happiness and peace if they could.

- Morgoth's Ring, pp. 212-213

[sindohte]

I view LACE and Tolkien's canon as a general blueprint for me to follow. Do I always follow it? Heck no. I like reading and writing about Elves with healthy sex drives, both before and after marriage There are enough grey or blank areas in Tolkien's canon for any writer to go wild and be creative. Perfect example - since Tolkien never explicitly said that there were no female rangers, it is perfectly acceptable to wonder, "What if one or more female rangers went along to fight in the WoTR?" At the same time, I do believe that a happy balance can be struck between being creative and writing a story that can fit more or less comfortably in the Tolkienverse.

Personally, I see canon as sort of a cookbook that I use in forming a story. I may leave out some spices, add for a few new ingredients, but in the end it will still be an easily identifiable version of the original recipe. Like making meatloaf - if you are making the recipe from memory, it may vary each time as the cooke might use different ingredients as the mood strikes, but at the end of the day it is still meatloaf. So as long as all of us are making some form of meatloaf and not chicken pot pie, it will all work out in the end (man I am sure hungry right about now).

[Jillian]

My two bobs worth. Laws and customs was a system designed to work in a perfect world, Valinor, and it is not known if those Laws applied only to Noldor, or if the assuption all elves lived by them is correct. Even there, the Valar realise there must be exceptions, and allowed Finwe to remarry.

The few elf/mortal marriages are exceptions to L&C too, and I believe somewhere in HoME or Tolkiens letters are references to the fact that the Avari elves would remarry commonly if widowed. Maybe the Sindar, and even Noldor in M-E did the same?

My point, there are cannonical exceptions. Therefore, in a story, you could chuck L&C to the winds with a decent, logical explaination as to why. Even that the elven character/characters are delibrately and knowing breaking L& C for what they consider a good reason.

[Alassante]

You know how you voice your opinion on a forum then it seems to offend some and you wish you could take it back. I am having one of those moments now....

[Havetoist]

[Texasgirl]

i don't know if this has already been said...but here's my two cents worth

but i think that in the case of a married elven couple, they might wait for a while before having kids....say 700 years.....

with the war and tolkein thing, i think tolkein was kind of in the mind that since elves love life so much, they might want to raise children when they can go outside and play...not when their parents have to go off and kill orcs and they have to stay inside, well, you get the point

TG

[inglor]

Two good articles about elfsex:


http://www.ithilas.com/morgoth.html (Slash site)
is in defense of slash and unregulated elfsex (exageration)... it has some logical arguments though the author uses isolated or singular examples to make generalities


http://www.ansereg.com/what_tolkien_officially_said_abo.htm (Adult site)
This is a more literal interpretation imho. A surprisingly conservative view considering the author.

Inglor