The sinking of Numenor - a lesson to whom?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Hmm... I thought if this is not getting too off-topic, but then, it is still about the thesis you propose about Númenor. Whether Númenor was a patriarchal society (seemingly it was) and what effects it had is another thing, but it can't be shown on the examples you pose. Or, of course the society in which the biblical stories take place, and in which they are written, is patriarchal, and it's even shown on for example Lot's authority over his daughters, as you also mentioned. But the way you use the examples is actually not percieving them the way they are meant. (Whoever doesn't want to read more and to whom this suffices may skip the rest of the post.)

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I can see one other similarity between the story of Lot/Sodom and Numenor, although I grant it is hardly likely that such would have been one of Tolkien's intentions. Both stories demonstrate a traditional attitude towards women in patriarchial societies. Numenor enacts the traditional idea that it is an ill fate for a woman to inherit the throne--this was one of the prejudices which Elizabeth I constantly faced and had to fight down; in the story of Sodom Lot's wife is punished for looking back but Lot is never punished for offering his own daughters to be raped (to say nothing of what happens subsequently with the lewd story of drunkenness and incest--although the land of his son Moab is said to be a tainted land).

Lot's wife was turned into that statue because she turned back even though the refugees were told not to do so. On the other hand, Lot giving his daughters to be raped was actually a good deed from him (indeed! Though of course we won't perceive it like that in the current society, but you must think how people perceived it with the morals of the ancient societies, when the tale came to be), because he was willing to give his own daughters (his property, in that society -again, if you wished the story to happen in today's circumstances, you would have to imagine something else instead of the daughters there - but still it was probably the most prized "possession" he had) in exchange for the safety of his guests, strangers who came under his roof and to whom he promised a shelter and he was not going to break it, he was willing to sacrifice his own in order to really provide the guests with a safe haven. For illustration, if you wanted to make a story with similar point for example in M-E, you could make a story where for example Mim the Dwarf would send son for certain death to divert Morgoth's spies away from Amon Rudh in order to save Túrin from being discovered, or something like that.

As for the incest episode later, that could do for long. But in short, it was common in the ancient times in many cultures, for example for the Egyptians, to marry their close relatives, but the Israelites had clear law against it and it was not necessary to point out that it's something wrong, everybody knew - like nowadays. The "curse" for the incest can be explained for example in the meaning of the names of the two sons: the way they are translated here is different from the way the nations of Ammon and Moab (the descendants of these two sons) understood them. That way, this would be aimed against the nations of Ammon and Moab who claimed their kings being the descendants of gods, or maybe being so "high" and of "pure blood" because of the pure blood of their forefathers (the same blood = through the incest). It's well known also from many ancient mythologies that there are often incests in the families of the gods. So the Ammonites probably were proud of having such an ancestor. This tale was supposed to show that there's nothing to be proud of. (Although the main point of the story probably lies in the motives of the daughters and Lot, but that'd be probably for other talk.)

Gender does not play a role in Babel except that I suppose one can say it is males who presume to build a tower to heaven in order to preempt further punishment from God--with God taking back his gift to Adam of naming things by creating linquistic diversity Himself.

Well, here I would actually say that it definitely were not just males. Because even though a patriarchal society, the point of the story was that all the people wanted to be united by building the tower - and that would include even women, with no doubt, simply because of the logical point of the story.