Ooh la la, Lúthien...

[Tar-Palantir]

Actually I don't think Tolkien thought that far into the matter for it to be an issue in his writing.

That, is not that [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] He obviously decribed in his letters, as posted above, what was required for a union between the Eldar. He included in his books weddings of various sorts alongside instances of lust. The tales are simply incomplete in certain details of the process and more importantly, what was their standard?? What policies did most people adhere to? How prevalent was deviant behavior? Who was prone to be the deviant one (men v. women, humans v. elves)?

Like Estelyn said, he was presumably writing a prehistory to our modern day world. That is why I believe Tolkien most certainly thought about it, when studying histories of varying cultures this subject is eminently worthy of attention, given that every culture you could wish to study is invariably different regarding marriage and man/wowan relationships.

I prefer to think he rejected the idea of greatly broaching the subject because it would do little to further improve the richness of this story without causing mountains of problems. In example, I doubt he wanted to get stuck between A) including (according to his beliefs) deviant sexual behavior; or B) writing a manual of how perfect or ideal love should manifest itself.

No offense intended, but I think the argument that a legally binding document is necessary today because someone's word 'back then' was worth more is a huge pile of hooey. The idea that the our societys today don't know how to express and interpret love anymore is a better argument.

Cheers,
[img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]