Posted: August 17, 1999 at 09:38:26: by Cuiviar
: Doubtless this has occured to some-- what about the
barren-ness or relative infertility of the Elven race? After
all, living thousands of years, most Elves only have one or two
offspring. So what's up with birth control?
: Naturally these questions have not been deeply explored by
JRRT.
: Nevertheless, let me hazard one extrapolation for the board:
Elven sex was a rare event, occuring no more frequently than
pregnancy among the Second-born.
: Perhaps one of the consequences made by Elves who became mortal
would be to become sexually active as the Second-born...Maybe. There was obviously no pre-marital sex, since 'bodily
union' was the true bond of marriage. And Tolkien states that it
was common for married elves to live in separate places at times.
This probably gives us a bit to think about in terms of Feanor,
however, with his 7 children (although I beleive Amrod and Amras
were twins); his "spirit of fire" seems to have extended into his
sex drive as well as other things.
To back-up your statement another way, an elf would have a
greater control of his hroa/body than would a man; an elf would
be ruled mainly by his fea/spirit, that is to say, by his true
nature, and not by bodily desires. In this case, I would
extrapolate that there were not any fat elves either, since
excesses in behavior of all forms tends to derive from the
immediate wants of the body, not of the spirit. ......................
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