dreamingfifi
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Rîn Athrabeth
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|  | An Elven Wedding
« Thread Started on Nov 13, 2006, 12:57am » | |
An Elven Wedding
Discuss this essay here!
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Bestathanc ir nin tyngig an ndôr sîdh.
We shall be wedded when you bring me to a land of peace. -Nimrodel |
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JunoMagic
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| | Re: An Elven Wedding
« Reply #1 on Dec 23, 2006, 1:30pm » | |
That's a nice comprehensive summary you put together. 
However, I have a tiny bit of criticism.
I think you are misreading LaCE when you say that "sex is marriage".
For an accurate interpretation it's necessary to take into account the sentence after "It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete." as well.
I am referring to "(...) to marry thus of free consent one to another without ceremony or witness (save for the blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name); and then the union so joined was alike indissoluble."
What Tolkien does here is listing the conditions for a legal marriage between Elves, and if you take the second sentence into account, there is more to it than just having sex. It's not legal without having sex, but that's not all there is to it.
You need:
free consent; that means both partners have to say "I will" - express their free consent in some way
they need to exchange blessings
they need to say the name of Eru
and they need to have sex to achieve indissolubility of the union
While that does mean that marriage without sex is not valid among Elves, it is not a logically permissible conclusion to say the other elements that Tolkien lists for informal marriages in times of trouble are not necessary to achieve a legally valid union.
All of this is also not very original - it's simply another way to describe the Catholic idea of marriage, which can be annihilated if the union was never consummated.
I hope that helps!
Yours
JunoMagic
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dreamingfifi
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Rîn Athrabeth
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| | Re: An Elven Wedding
« Reply #2 on Dec 29, 2006, 4:23am » | |
I think that Tolkien means the ceremony and name is celebrating the sexual union that has or is about to take place. Once an Elf has had sex with someone, he or she is bound to that person forever, ceremonies or not. To quote Morgoth's Ring, Page 211 (Laws and Customs Among the Eldar):
Quote:| But these ceremonies were not rites necessary to marriage; they were only a gracious mode by which the love of the parents was manifested, and the union was recognized which would join not only the betrothed but their two houses together. It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond complete. |
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Moreover, I'm fighting hordes of fangirls and slashers who often write of lust crazed Elves, not realizing that they are making their characters make multiple indissoluble bonds of marriage, which is against the laws of the Eldar.
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Bestathanc ir nin tyngig an ndôr sîdh.
We shall be wedded when you bring me to a land of peace. -Nimrodel |
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The Lauderdale
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| | Re: An Elven Wedding
« Reply #3 on Jan 7, 2007, 7:18am » | |
JunoMagic! I hadn't noticed your post before. I remember reading your annotated LaCE some time ago. Do you mind my saying that I have been half in love with you ever since? [beams]
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Estel Dunadan
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| | Re: An Elven Wedding
« Reply #4 on Feb 14, 2007, 9:18am » | |
About the text of the vows - how come no mortal has heard them? The Two Kindreds were not so far estranged in the First and Second Ages; would not some Edain have been present at a wedding of two Eldar? And what about the Peredhil? How did their parents' marry?
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dreamingfifi
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Rîn Athrabeth
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Joined: Aug 2005
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| | Re: An Elven Wedding
« Reply #5 on Feb 14, 2007, 3:25pm » | |
Good point... Tolkien should have remembered that too. That fact actually comes from that essay. So, I suppose that Beren, Tuor, Imrazor, and Aragorn could have heard the vows as well, unless they used Mannish customs instead, which we don't know.
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Bestathanc ir nin tyngig an ndôr sîdh.
We shall be wedded when you bring me to a land of peace. -Nimrodel |
|
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