Laws and Customs among the Eldar
the late essay on Elvish marriage, the fëa and hröa, and death (Morgoth's Ring, HoME 10)
Nature
Laws and Customs among the Eldar — in full, concerning marriage and sundry other matters relating thereto — is the late philosophical-legal essay on the being of the Elves: the indwelling of the fëa (the soul) in the hröa (the body), the once-only marriage of the Eldar, the giving of names, and the fate of the dead whose fëa lingers long in the Halls of Mandos. Its great test-case is Míriel, the mother of Fëanor, and the debate of the Valar over her and over Finwë.
Contents
The nature of Elvish marriage: the long betrothal, the once-made and unbreakable bond, and the wedlock that death alone cannot sunder; The doctrine of the fëa and hröa: the incarnation of the Eldar, the weariness of the soul in the body, and the summons of Mandos at death; Names and their giving: the father-names and mother-names (the essi) of the Elves; Death and its customs: the parting of fëa and hröa, the long waiting, and the possible return of the soul in a new body; The sorrow of Míriel and the divided judgment of the Valar — the well-spring of the marriage-law and of Fëanor’s own history.
Composition
Written in the late 1950s, at the height of Tolkien’s late philosophy of the Eldar, Laws and Customs belongs to the same stratum as the Athrabeth and was published with it in Morgoth’s Ring (1993, HoME 10), where Christopher Tolkien discusses its doctrine and its bearing on the tale of Míriel and Fëanor in the Silmarillion.