Elves- A second puberty?

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by MatthewM

My main question about this has always been, since Tolkien cites that Numenoreans take after the fashion of Elves, if Elves grow a beard in their third cycle of life, do Numenoreans as well? If so, the "third cycle" of a Numenorean's life would be a much younger age than the third cycle of an Elf's life. When would a Numenorean (or one so descended such as Boromir, Denethor, Faramir, Aragorn...) grow a beard? Or did they just shave? Did people even shave in M-e?

I tend to think that the Numenoreans only got a beard when heir "blessed years" were over. By that I mean the years when they stayed young for sometimes over a hundread years (much more in the early Numenoreans). After that then they got old and my guess is also bearded.

But to me, Boromir and Faramir don't seem to be true Numenoreans, so I think they just shaved, as was probably the custom of their people. Aragorn, has more Numenorean blood in him, but still, I think after all those years of "mixing" with non-Numenoreans, he must have had a beard (but was probably even more likely to shave).

But I have a question- Are all Numenoreans direct descendants of Elros? Because otherwise, it would have a very small population, all with severe gentic disease (incest). And in the UT, I remember that at some time, a royal was only allowed to marry another descendant of Elros, which to me means that there were non-Elros people on the island. But did they also live longer? Was it because of the people or the island or both?