Marriage!

[yavanna II]

Saurreg, I think I can answer that.

Elf Women are beautiful, more than mortals. Remember the nature of Elves as the fairest?
Elf Men are too proud of themselves(they think they're really cute)to marry mortal maidens.

No mortal was as beautiful as an elf maid save Morwen of the House of Beor.
No elf bothered to court those mortals.
And they didn't want a wife who would eventually die while they live forever.
that is unless they're slain....

Mortal men had guts to court elf maids coz they don't have much pride.
Some of them think that mortals are just, you know, second to the fairest ....
Beren, I think, knew Luthien as fairest since he didn't get a chance to see Idril, Galadriel,etc

And as for Aragorn, I think if Arwen was not Elrond's daughter[let's say Thranduil's] he wouldn't dare. Arwen was part mortal, right?

[Mithalwen]

I always thought that the 13 children was a bit excessive ..... like saying "Sam was 300% heterosexual despite his devotion to Mr Frodo.... "

As for the intermarrying of elves and men ... I might say that all women marry beneath them... lol but you could speculate that compared to the androgynous elven men the mortals might have seemed really hunky and oozing testosterone.... also Melian might have started a genetic tendency to marry down?

Another factor is the enclosed communities that they lived in (Doriath, Gondolin...) like changing schools at sixteen or going to uni and suddenly there are loads of guys around who you don't remember as ten year olds.....much more appealing.... probably a tendency nature encourages to widen the gene pool....

[Encaitare]

And as for Aragorn, I think if Arwen was not Elrond's daughter[let's say Thranduil's] he wouldn't dare. Arwen was part mortal, right?

Indeed. Since she was the child of Elrond the Half-elven (actually I think someone here figured it out to be nine-sixteenths ) who got to choose between mortality and immortality, she too got that choice. I agree, though; if Arwen was entirely elven it is less likely that Aragorn would have pursued a relationship with her. Plus, the fact that he had Elrond's love and trust was doubtless helpful; he didn't have to go through that troublesome confrontation of the guy meeting his girlfriend's intimidating dad!

[Elianna]

As for Galadriel and Celeborn, the answer could simply lie in surprisingly limited choices. Assuming she married after leaving Valinor: All the Vanyar were still in Valinor. Of the Noldor, elves of the House of Finarfin are excluded (too closly related, duh), and she was "unfriends" with Fëanor, so his desendants were also excluded. This leaves the House of Fingolfin, to which she probably felt herself too closly related to.
That leaves the Teleri. In the standing of Teleri, Celeborn was high up, Thingol's nephew. (Of course, being Thingol's nephew makes Celeborn and Galadriel each other's first cousin once removed, which is still too close if you ask me, but oh well.)

Originally posted by Mithalwen:...you might speculate compared to the androgynous elven men...

That's only Orli-Lego. There were plenty of masculine elven men. Gil-galad, Celebrimbor, Thranduil, Echthelion, Glorfindel......

As for Melian..............she was just weird.........

[Gil-Galad]

One thing that bother me on this topic is in some of the small rpg's i run offsite, i have alot of people being Sarumans daughter... a child of an elf lady and a man...man andi keep thinking that they would be rather seperated and this could not happen...eventually my complaining got me kicked out of these groups for "disrupting" the rpg's...

[Lalaith]

Teleri men wouldn't necessarily be weak, they just had different priorities to the Noldor.
There was a mortal woman who had a love affair with an elf, she was called Andreth and he was Aegnor (Galadriel's brother I think?) But it didn't work out.

And in defence of Sam and Rosie, a family of thirteen children was not particularly excessive in Georgian and Victorian England. (Look at how many children the Old Took had, btw)
Most couples had a lot of babies (no contraception!) but often not all survived the childhood illnesses and post-natal complications that abounded in the days before innoculations, antibiotics and so on.
Some families, however, due to perhaps a combination of genetic luck, better access to healthcare and good parenting, did manage to bring all or most of their children to adulthood. The Gamgees were clearly in this category!

[Saurreg]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

There was a mortal woman who had a love affair with an elf, she was called Andreth and he was Aegnor (Galadriel's brother I think?) But it didn't work out.

Really? Guess I was wrong after all. Though If I were to pull a yavanna II, I would say that Aegnor thought that he was too pretty for Andreth.

Aegnor was the brother of Galadriel I think. He, Finrod, Angrod and Galadriel were all children of Finarfin.