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Middle Earth has no contraception (Tolkien is catholic) and the only way to stop multiplying is to stop doing... math. LOTR is famous for the women missing from

Middle Earth has no contraception (Tolkien is catholic) and the only way to stop multiplying is to stop doing... math. LOTR is famous for the women missing from social life, so there is no reason that such measures have been taken. So, you are expected to have high birthrate until you occupy all the good lands and then some. After that you either rediscover Malthus or you start innovating to get more out of what you have.

ghaff 4y ago
That assumes homo sapiens levels of childbirth however. As a number of comments touch on, a lot of the lack of technological advance could be hand-waved away as a result of low birthrates and a generally low population. You could also perhaps factor in a general societal distaste for technology although human history suggests that societies which can't or won't create technology are overwhelmed by societies that do.
- gostsamo 4y ago
  I mean, we can all say "magic" and not think about it, but the fun here is in thinking and the hand-waving is not in the spirit of it.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I'm not sure it's hand-wavy "magic." The essay is talking about things that are different in Middle Earth that could have led to the lack of an industrial revolution by the Third Age. Lower population growth (and slower population recovery after plagues and wars) seem like a pretty plausible factor. It's also plausible that societal advancement was also just slower than with us when the author seems to assume it would be expected to advance at the same pace. (i.e. it's taken ME longer to reach a medieval level of advancement.) Certainly happened with plenty of areas in our world for geographical determination and other reasons--though, by effectively modeling ME on Europe and giving it horses and AFAIK familiar crops, that's a harder case to make.
    - inawarminister 4y ago
      Uh, the humans of Gondor were descended from Numenoreans, who were descended from the Houses of Edain, men who morphed from Neolithic kit technology to High Medieval (pre-plate armour and gunpowder) by being uplifted by Noldorian elves in Beleriand. Unlike the humans from a certain other famous series, we knew the background of Gondorians all the way to their earliest fathers around year... 300? 800? Of the first age of the Sun. Now, discounting that... I agree, ME has really low population growth. Might be caused by Gondorians and Arnorians living to 200+, 300+ years old earlier, when their culture were established; when the blood grows thin and they live like normal humans, their cultures ossified already; 40 - 50 year old normal human grooms and brides aren't as productive as 80-100 year old Numenorian grooms and brides.
  - erikpukinskis 4y ago
    It’s not just magic. In the First Age children were more of a vanity project… every creature in existence had a downright biblical origin. Men don’t even exist until the Second Age, and “cities” at that time are basically just family settlements, with maybe a few dozen generations of men. And at first they’re below replacement rate. Look at the family tree of Beor: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/B%C3%ABor#Genealogy… http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/B%C3%ABor#Genealogy… no one is having three kids. It’s two or one. The Third Age is only a few thousand years later. There’s just not enough time at those kind of birth rates to blanket a continent the way humans have.
mcv 4y ago
> LOTR is famous for the women missing from social life, so there is no reason that such measures have been taken. Maybe the women are missing from not just from social life, but from the world. Not just the entwives[0] and the rarely seen dwarven women, but even human women are surprisingly rare. How many of all those many men making an appearance were married? Only hobbits seem to have actual families, but still not very big ones. Maybe Middle Earth just isn't very fertile and can't sustain large populations. Maybe there's a very good reason why population levels are closer to Siberia. [0] https://xkcd.com/2609/ https://xkcd.com/2609/
- gostsamo 4y ago
  The rohinims don't have that issue for example. Nor it is mentioned as an issue for the other human societies. That's why the situation of the ents is considered such an anomaly.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Sam, post war, has a large family, and some of the other hobbits do as well (Farmer Cotton, for example). But it also seems that Frodo and Bilbo were NOT mentioned as being "strange" or anything, so it's not certain that everyone would marry and have a family of any size.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    They were explicitly mentioned as being strange, though not explicitly for being bachelors. More for being rich, reclusive and unusually young-looking for their ages.

ghaff 4y ago

That assumes homo sapiens levels of childbirth however. As a number of comments touch on, a lot of the lack of technological advance could be hand-waved away as a result of low birthrates and a generally low population. You could also perhaps factor in a general societal distaste for technology although human history suggests that societies which can't or won't create technology are overwhelmed by societies that do.

gostsamo 4y ago
I mean, we can all say "magic" and not think about it, but the fun here is in thinking and the hand-waving is not in the spirit of it.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I'm not sure it's hand-wavy "magic." The essay is talking about things that are different in Middle Earth that could have led to the lack of an industrial revolution by the Third Age. Lower population growth (and slower population recovery after plagues and wars) seem like a pretty plausible factor. It's also plausible that societal advancement was also just slower than with us when the author seems to assume it would be expected to advance at the same pace. (i.e. it's taken ME longer to reach a medieval level of advancement.) Certainly happened with plenty of areas in our world for geographical determination and other reasons--though, by effectively modeling ME on Europe and giving it horses and AFAIK familiar crops, that's a harder case to make.
  - inawarminister 4y ago
    Uh, the humans of Gondor were descended from Numenoreans, who were descended from the Houses of Edain, men who morphed from Neolithic kit technology to High Medieval (pre-plate armour and gunpowder) by being uplifted by Noldorian elves in Beleriand. Unlike the humans from a certain other famous series, we knew the background of Gondorians all the way to their earliest fathers around year... 300? 800? Of the first age of the Sun. Now, discounting that... I agree, ME has really low population growth. Might be caused by Gondorians and Arnorians living to 200+, 300+ years old earlier, when their culture were established; when the blood grows thin and they live like normal humans, their cultures ossified already; 40 - 50 year old normal human grooms and brides aren't as productive as 80-100 year old Numenorian grooms and brides.
- erikpukinskis 4y ago
  It’s not just magic. In the First Age children were more of a vanity project… every creature in existence had a downright biblical origin. Men don’t even exist until the Second Age, and “cities” at that time are basically just family settlements, with maybe a few dozen generations of men. And at first they’re below replacement rate. Look at the family tree of Beor: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/B%C3%ABor#Genealogy… http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/B%C3%ABor#Genealogy… no one is having three kids. It’s two or one. The Third Age is only a few thousand years later. There’s just not enough time at those kind of birth rates to blanket a continent the way humans have.

mcv 4y ago

> LOTR is famous for the women missing from social life, so there is no reason that such measures have been taken. Maybe the women are missing from not just from social life, but from the world. Not just the entwives[0] and the rarely seen dwarven women, but even human women are surprisingly rare. How many of all those many men making an appearance were married? Only hobbits seem to have actual families, but still not very big ones. Maybe Middle Earth just isn't very fertile and can't sustain large populations. Maybe there's a very good reason why population levels are closer to Siberia. [0] https://xkcd.com/2609/ https://xkcd.com/2609/

gostsamo 4y ago
The rohinims don't have that issue for example. Nor it is mentioned as an issue for the other human societies. That's why the situation of the ents is considered such an anomaly.
bombcar 4y ago
Sam, post war, has a large family, and some of the other hobbits do as well (Farmer Cotton, for example). But it also seems that Frodo and Bilbo were NOT mentioned as being "strange" or anything, so it's not certain that everyone would marry and have a family of any size.
- vintermann 4y ago
  They were explicitly mentioned as being strange, though not explicitly for being bachelors. More for being rich, reclusive and unusually young-looking for their ages.