Quote:
Originally posted by Child of the 7th Age
Yes, I know that some hobbits live to the ripe old age of one hundred or more. But if you take the geneologies plus HoMe and calculate the average age at death for hobbits, it comes up as 92. Using this as a standard, Bilbo and Frodo at '50' were no longer young.
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Perhaps our view of the age of 50 is influenced by our modern lifespan lengthening due to modern medicine, healthy environmental knowledge such as improved sanitation, and other lifespan effects due to modern scientific technology such as improved efficient food production and distribution.
Let's suppose that we (21st century men) have longer spans due to many of these issues, and our average in the Western world these days is about 75 or so. What kind of adjustments could we consider, to see how the hobbit age of 50 relates to the hobbit age of 92?
I would say that we have a lot longer-lived people on average because of our medicine. First, hobbits may have had many of their folks die prematurely due to lack of medicine. That is to say, that if they had our medical care, their life spans would have averaged well over 100.
Second, our medicine may prolong many infirm folks' lifespans well beyond their expectations without modern medicine. We have people who live for years on life-sustaining medicines and treatments. The hobbits would have had little of this. (Though ale and Old Toby could ease your situation, I am sure.)
So I would speculate that a medicine adjustment would make our life spans average around 60.
On the other hand, the Shire was relatively prosperous in the sense of food, lack of war, plenty of trade. So I am not sure how, or if, to make any adjustment in comparison to our current era. Also, from what I have read in JRRT's
Letters, Tolkien seemed to lack an appreciation of how technological progress would enhance medicine, sanitation and other environmental concerns, and food production. So here, I suppost no adjustment is applicable (calculable/estimable?).
Using your average hobbit lifespan calculation of 92, 50 years old is just a little above the half-way point of 46. And if our adjusted modern human lifespans were about 60, then the halfway point would be 30. So someone just a little older than that, about early 30's, would not really seem old, but on the other hand they are too old to be drafted and sent off as a young warrior.
And for another comparison, hobbits "came of age" or reached adulthood at 33, so a 50-year old would be about half again as old. And for us, we are considered adult at about 18-21. And someone in their early 30's would be about half again as old.
Looks to me like a 50-year old hobbit would not be so old after all.