Tolkien’s Insights into the Feminine Soul

Contrary to popular opinion and the portrayals in film adaptations of his The Lord of the Rings trilogy — including those by Peter Jackson, the recent Rings of Power Amazon Prime series, and The War of the Rohirrim animated movie — J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) had a great love for women. He was neither a feminist nor a misogynist. For him, a woman is good as a woman, not just when she tries to impersonate a man. Tolkien’s deep appreciation for what’s called the “feminine genius” is reflected throughout his nonfiction writings, private correspondence, and works of fiction.

The greatest female influence in Tolkien’s life was his mother, Mabel. She raised him and his brother, Hilary, as a single parent after her husband’s untimely death and instructed them in the faith following her conversion to Catholicism. She endured persecution from her anti-Catholic relatives, finally succumbing, as Tolkien recalls, to “heroic sufferings and early death in extreme poverty” — passing away from diabetes when Tolkien was only 12. Her example inspired him for the rest of his life. “My own dear mother,” he said, “was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith” (quoted in Humphrey Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, 1977).

Tolkien learned from a young age to respect the intellectual capacity of women. “It is to my mother who taught me (until I obtained a scholarship at the ancient Grammar School in Birmingham) that I owe my tastes for philology, especially of Germanic languages, and for romance,” he wrote. Before he entered school, she had already instilled in him a lifelong love of botany, taught him to read, and instructed him in Latin, French, and German. Tolkien continued to advance women’s education by tutoring many female students while an Oxford professor and encouraging his daughter Priscilla’s learning.

More well known is Tolkien’s devotion to his beloved wife, Edith, to whom he remained faithful from the time he met her until her death (he passed away shortly after she did). C.S. Lewis once described Tolkien as “the most married man I know” (quoted in Holly Ordway’s Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography, 2023) for the great comfort he took in being a husband and father. Despite their occasional tensions, Tolkien cared for Edith through her many health struggles and always provided for her needs.

Though these women, and many others unmentioned here, were significant influences, the most important woman in Tolkien’s life was the greatest of all women and Mother of the Church: the Blessed Virgin Mary. As Tolkien explained to his friend Fr. Robert Murray, S.J., “I think I know exactly what you mean by…your references to Our Lady, upon which all my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded.”

Tolkien did not, however, idolize women. He understood that women, no less than men, are fallen, their intellects darkened and their flesh stricken with concupiscence by Original Sin. Because of this, he wrote to his second son, Michael, “There is no consonance between our bodies, minds, and souls.” He thus cautioned Michael against the idolatrous idealization of women in the chivalrous medieval tradition of courtly romance. “The woman is another fallen human-being with a soul in peril,” he wrote. Chivalrous romance “takes, or at any rate has in the past taken, the young man’s eye off women as they are, as companions in shipwreck not guiding stars.” But “the romantic chivalric tradition,” Tolkien continued, when “combined and harmonized with religion…can be very noble,” as it was “long ago,” when it produced “much of that beautiful devotion to Our Lady that has been God’s way of refining so much our gross manly natures and emotions.”

As Tolkien mentions, men and women share a single human nature, in which their dignity and spiritual capacities are equal, but they participate in this nature in distinctly masculine and feminine ways, with distinct strengths and sin-caused weaknesses. Generally, it could be said that men are especially prone to three faults — malice, lust, and envy — while women are particularly susceptible to deceit, vanity, and jealousy. Not every man or woman will exhibit these tendencies, but they must be ever vigilant against them, especially in a culture like ours that tends to deny not only sin but human nature itself. Just as men can fall prey to mocking, pornography, and greed, women can become manipulative, narcissistic, and conceited. When women try to impersonate men, as feminists encourage them to do, they can even fuse their own faults to those of men (just as effeminate men can combine their manly faults with those of women). As Tolkien warned Michael: “You may meet in life (as in literature) women who are flighty, or even plain wanton,” women who are “actually so depraved as to enjoy ‘conquests,’ or even enjoy the giving of pain — but these are abnormalities, even though false teaching, bad upbringing, and corrupt fashions may encourage them.”

For those familiar with Tolkien’s stories of Middle-earth, it could seem that he idealized women. There are no female villains in The Lord of the Rings (Shelob the spider notwithstanding), and the women who do show some weaknesses, such as Galadriel (a royal Elf) and Éowyn (a noblewoman of Rohan, a kingdom of men), are still central heroines who overcome their faults without apparently succumbing to them. There is, perhaps, some truth to this impression, though as he aged, Tolkien became a bit wiser in his estimation of women. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at Galadriel and Éowyn and Tolkien’s brilliant if subtle insights into the feminine soul.

Galadriel is one of the greatest women in the history of Middle-earth — the “mightiest and fairest of all the Elves,” as she is described in The Silmarillion — the one Tolkien most explicitly connected to the Virgin Mary. She is thus Tolkien’s chief exemplar of femininity, in both its special gifts and vulnerabilities, revealed most clearly in her interactions in Lothlórien, the realm she established with her husband, Celeborn, with the Fellowship, a brotherhood of Free Peoples who band together to destroy the One Ring. As Tolkien scholar Richard Purtill explains, Galadriel demonstrates the virtues that come most naturally to women, especially “gentleness, understanding of personal relationships, [and] compassion” (J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality and Religion, 1987). Purtill also points out that, in Galadriel’s descriptions of herself, she makes clear that “it is not her task…to decide or plan for others.” Instead, for each member of the Fellowship, she “has made their [available] choices explicit and concrete.”

Despite being one of the most powerful creatures in Middle-earth, a ring-bearer capable of wresting the One Ring away from the evil Sauron’s control, and an Elf of unequaled antiquity and wisdom, Galadriel does not seek to rule or dominate others. She submits to Celeborn, both as her king and husband, and simply helps the Fellowship decide which paths to take, while imposing nothing on them herself. Tolkien called this “the servient, helpmeet instinct” — something that could get him “canceled” today and is neglected in the film adaptations mentioned above.

Just as every good man is in some way a father, so every good woman is in some way a mother, and Galadriel, by her wise guidance, humble submission, gentle nurturing, and courageous defiance of evil through purity of heart and strength of will, exemplifies motherhood in heroic fashion. Galadriel, however, is no less powerful or intelligent for her feminine submissiveness — in fact, it is her greatest asset. Her total lack of pride allows her to see into the mind of Sauron and, unlike Denethor and Saruman, resist his seductions over many centuries, never disclosing the location of her ring or any other secrets to him.

As an Elf and a female, Galadriel also exemplifies beauty. This is another difficult concept for modern people, eliciting accusations of “fat-shaming” or presumptions of vanity and ostentation. But while men and women both naturally love beauty, women have an innate affinity for it, modestly allowing it to shine forth in their figures, personalities, and adornments. The beauty of women has something “faërie” about it that is endlessly enchanting. Men cherish this, and it inspires in them a clarity, nobility, and delicacy they rarely experience in their workaday labors. And though it can lead to the idolization of women, as Tolkien warned Michael, it can also, in better men, point them to the Virgin Mary and, through her, to God, who is Beauty itself.

In her time with the Fellowship, Galadriel also endures and overcomes her greatest temptation and, in her own words, reveals the hardest trial for all women. As Purtill explains:

Tolkien pictures Galadriel’s temptation as the temptation to be universally, irresistibly, loved…. The light the ring sheds is only on her, “leaving all else in darkness.” Envy, the desire to be preeminent, is a traditional masculine vice; jealousy, the desire to be loved uniquely and exclusively, is a traditional feminine vice. Galadriel imagines herself the focus of everyone’s possessive love; since she cannot belong to everyone, “all shall love me and despair!”

Whether or not they admit it (just as men rarely admit their own faults), this is the most common temptation for women, something that ensnares many and can even ruin marriages and families. But how does Galadriel (indeed, any woman) overcome it? It is done through a lifetime of inculcating wisdom and virtue, as well as “previous thought and resolve.” Purtill observes:

The words in which Galadriel refuses the temptation are both beautiful and significant: “I will diminish…”: she can face losing power, becoming less than she is, as Denethor or Saruman could not. Next, “and go into the West”: she will leave the Middle-earth she loves, give up her fight to preserve an Elvish remnant in Middle-earth. Finally, “and remain Galadriel”: she will retain her true self, be her own woman and not the tool of the evil power in the Ring.

A strong argument could be made that the most complex — and misunderstood — character in The Lord of the Rings is Éowyn. Like Galadriel, Éowyn, precisely because she is a woman, has a distinctly Marian role as the only one capable of defeating the Witch-king of Angmar, a subordinate of Sauron. Similarly, God chose the Virgin Mary, through the prophetic Protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15, to crush the head of Satan by becoming the Mother of God, the tabernacle of the Incarnation of her Son, whose Cross would destroy the dominion of the Devil forever.

Many have made another comparison: Éowyn seems to be similar to Joan of Arc, the medieval French saint who received visions from God and inspired the knights of France to claim victory over the English in the Hundred Years’ War. For these actions, Joan is often appropriated as a feminist icon, an example of a woman overcoming the “patriarchal” standards of her time and achieving “equality” with men, fighting alongside them and leading troops into battle. It is, however, unlikely that Joan ever personally led troops or fought in battle; she was primarily a strategist, advisor, and inspirational figure. Further, as a medieval Catholic, she was certainly not a proto-feminist. Rather, she wore men’s clothing and armor primarily to preserve her virginity against the multiple instances of attempted rape — a primary reason (among others) why her actions are ordinarily inappropriate for women.

Éowyn, on the other hand, can be compared to feminists in some ways. For unknown reasons, by the time she is introduced in The Two Towers, Éowyn has developed a mentality of fatalism and despair. She longs for what the mavens of the Sexual Revolution call “women’s liberation,” to “vie with the great Riders [of Rohan],” as she later remarks (in The Return of the King), and “take joy only in the songs of slaying.” In a word, she desires to act like a man, to forsake her natural femininity in the hope that, by physical prowess, she could feel some kind of freedom. She places no value on her womanhood, seeing it, as feminists do, as a form of weakness that leads to enslavement to men. She thus says, practically echoing feminist mockery of housewives, “Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds when they return?”

This same spirit also causes Éowyn to shirk her responsibilities to Rohan, not only by abandoning its capital, Edoras, to accompany the Riders heading to Gondor (contrary to her king’s orders), but also by trying to join Aragorn, the lost heir of Gondor, on his journey through the Paths of the Dead. “I have waited on faltering feet long enough,” Éowyn says. Then she pointedly asks, “Since they falter no longer, it seems, may I not now spend my life as I will?” Aragorn offers a profound correction: “Few may do that with honour.” This is, as Joseph Pearce rightly observes, “a perfect riposte to all those who demand their rights over their responsibilities, doing their ‘own thing’ to the detriment of the common good” (“Revisiting ‘The Return of the King,’” The Imaginative Conservative, Oct. 5, 2019).

Feminist appraisals of Éowyn generally leave out her final rescue, not only by the ministrations of Aragorn but even more so by the love of Faramir, son of the steward of Gondor. The Witch-king’s black breath is not the only cause of Éowyn’s subsequent torpor; she also succumbs to the shadow of suicidal despair and self-loathing, which has haunted her for many years and inspired both her hero-worship of Aragorn and her deceptive impersonation of a man so as to ride with the knights of Rohan. She does not break free from these by “empowerment” or “asserting her independence,” as feminists would recommend. Instead, she rediscovers her true femininity, revealed and affirmed by Faramir, a good man who loves her as a good woman. Whereas upon first meeting him she says, “Shadow lies on me still. Look not to me for healing! I am a shieldmaiden and my hand is ungentle,” now, after spending many days with him in Minas Tirith, she is finally set free:

Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her. “I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,” she said; “and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer…. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.” (The Fellowship of the Ring)

Pearce argues that it would be a “gross and grotesque error to see her change of heart as a defeat of her powers as a woman. Her status as the slayer of the Witch-king is not diminished, nor is the fact that the Witch-king’s defeat could only be accomplished by a woman negated” (“Hobbits and Heroines,” The Imaginative Conservative, Jan. 6, 2016).

God can bring good even out of our wrong choices, and He uses the despair and disobedience of Éowyn to bring about the downfall of the Witch-king. Similarly, Tolkien observes, “Though not a ‘dry nurse’ in temper, [Éowyn] was also not really a soldier or ‘amazon,’ but like many brave women was capable of great military gallantry at a crisis.”

Though it is unfitting for women to serve in combat roles, whether in the police force or the military, they can still act with exceptional heroism in times of need, just as women during the World Wars worked men’s jobs with great productivity until they could return to their most natural and fulfilling roles as wives and mothers when their husbands returned home — for those whose husbands were fortunate enough to return. The true issue, which is difficult to grasp in an age like ours that is obsessed with individual rights and practical freedoms, is not what women can or may or even must do, but what they should do — what is best and most fitting according to their natural femininity. The same applies to men in their natural masculinity. Both should do what promotes and most fruitfully employs their God-given gifts for the common good of the family and society and for their authentic happiness.

In a letter to Michael offering advice for attending Mass during the liturgical disintegration of the 1960s, Tolkien laments the presence of “women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered.” Why, someone today might ask, would he have a problem with women not wearing dresses or skirts and without veils at Mass? The reason is precisely because Tolkien loved women as women. He was not simply a “product of his time,” holding onto “outdated chauvinist values,” as some have claimed. Quite the opposite. He wanted clear distinctions between men and women, so both could be valued according to God’s distinctive design for them. A woman wearing a skirt or dress and veil at Mass with her family is a perfect image of the Virgin Mary, an earthly icon of she who is most blessed among women. This is what Tolkien cherished and strived to uphold and what can even today illuminate the home, the family, the Church, and all of society with God’s beautiful gift of femininity.

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