Overcoming the Great Divorce III: J.R.R. Tolkien

Last updated on: July 23, 2008 at 6:00 am by Henry Karlson

Overcoming the Great Divorce III: J.R.R. Tolkien 2008-07-23T06:00:45-05:00 Henry Karlson

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But as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking. Then Beren lay upon the ground in a swoon, as one slain at once by bliss and grief; and he fell into a sleep as it were into an abyss of shadow, and waking he was cold as stone, and his heart barren and forsaken.

**J.R.R. Tolkien. The Silmarillion.ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977), 165.

Tolkien and Lewis shared much in common, and that is why they were able to be close friends. Their love for fantastic stories, for myths, especially of the Northern kind, was what originally brought them together. Their discussion of the meaning and value of myth led Lewis to understand, like Tolkien, that myth must not be seen as a lie but as a way of expressing reality. Tolkien’s poem, Mythopoeia, written to Lewis while Lewis was still a skeptic, expresses quite well Tolkien’s conception of myth, a view which Lewis would proclaim with great depth in his own writings:

The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him.
[…]

Yes! ‘wish-fulfilment dreams’ we spin to cheat
our timid hearts and ugly Fact defeat!
Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem?
All wishes are not idle, nor in vain
fulfilment we devise — for pain is pain,
not for itself to be desired, but ill;
or else to strive or to subdue the will
alike were graceless; and of Evil this
alone is deadly certain: Evil is.
[…]

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).[1]

It is because of the bond of friendship which held Tolkien and Lewis together that Tolkien was capable of being hurt a great deal by Lewis. It was also that which led him to be quite sensitive to what he perceived to be Lewis’s faults. Later in life, after reading Walter Hooper’s edited volume of works by Lewis entitled Of Other Worlds, Tolkien would simplify his problems with Lewis to one poignant point: “I noticed, for the first time consciously, how dualistic Lewis’ mind and imagination [were], though as a philosopher his reason entirely rejected this.“[2] Lewis was, to Tolkien, a person in conflict; his personal life did not always meet his philosophical ideals. Lewis had a great mind and with it had seen the problems of dualism, but when he was not engaging a clear philosophical approach to what lay before him, Lewis was often let personal biases get in the way. Lewis was at heart an Irish Protestant; the biases and cultural mores of Irish Protestantism would come out time and again in his relationship with Tolkien, sometimes to such a shocking level when one understands how ecumenical Lewis otherwise was.[3]

From this we can begin to understand Tolkien’s reaction to Lewis in regards to the question of marriage. Fundamentally he believed that Lewis, like at other times, was self-contradictory. Philosophically Lewis held out against relativism (as can be seen in his book, *The Abolition of Man).*But there was a subjective, pragmatic side to Lewis’s thought, which is why his apologetics took on a common sense approach to the Christian faith. Yet this meant he did not sufficiently deal with those aspects of the faith which challenged common sense. Tolkien’s response to Lewis on marriage can be found in a draft of a letter he wrote to Lewis.[4] He begins with the fact that he had long been uncomfortable with Lewis’s views on marriage and divorce, but he never could quite understand why. Everything seemed so reasonable. And they were, on the surface. They reflected, in part, the situation as it existed in England.[5] But then, the question came, where do Christians get their ideas on marriage and divorce? From what Jesus said. What was the value of Jesus’ words? Were they, as Christians believed, revelation of absolute truth? Then the morality of his words must reflect something which is universal.[6] As A.N. Wilson puts it, “Either Christ, in condemning it (as the Gospels said He did), was uttering a universal moral law, binding for everybody – in which case a Christian cannot believe in ‘divorce for non-Christians’ any more than he can believe in theft for non-Christians – or it is not a universal law that divorce is in all circumstances wrong.“[7] In this fashion, Tolkien works to undermine Lewis’s appeal to the Muslims. If it is immoral to drink wine, then they are right in trying to remove its use from society; they are wrong, and it is because they are wrong that such a rule should not be forced upon all.[8] Divorce is abusive, and allowing it means society is complacent with such abuse; is it not abuse which the laws of society are meant to prevent?[9]

It is from this perspective Tolkien was to launch an open assault upon Lewis’s suggestion of having two different kinds of marriages, secular and religious. He would have none of it, especially since Lewis was trying to appeal to the Christians more than the non-Christians. In a somewhat satirical fashion, Tolkien said, “You do not speak of your two-marriage system as a merely expedient policy, but as if it was somehow related to the Christian virtue of charity. Still I think you can only defend it as an expedient; as a surgeon who, knowing that an operation is necessary for a patient’s health, does not operate because he can’t (the patient and the patient’s foolish advisers won’t allow him); or doe not even advocate the operation, because the Anti-Surgical League is so powerful and vocal that he is afraid of being beaten up.“[10] Indeed, it not only stunk of abuse, but it seemed to insult those who were religious: Tolkien had been to a wedding ceremony where the couple followed Lewis’s suggestions; the couple had given their vows to one another before a priest, then once again making less significant vows before a public magistrate. “I felt it was an abominable proceeding – and also ridiculous, since the first set of formulas and vows included the latter as the lesser.“[11]

In a letter to his son, Michael, J.R.R. Tolkien admitted that the Christian view can seem to contradict the ordinary desires of men. While we can find sociological reasons which show us some of the benefits of monogamy, men (and he means men, not women) struggle with it because it goes against their concupiscent “nature.” And if they were to follow their “nature,” they would not stick with marriage. They must have an outside source, revelation, to affirm its permanence. “Monogamy (although it has long been fundamental to our inherited ideas ) is for us men a piece of ‘revealed’ ethic, according to faith and not to the flesh. Each of us could healthily beget, in our 30 odd years of full manhood, a few hundred children, and enjoy the process.“[12] With the hardships one undergoes with marriage, if the state goes along and redefines it, and makes divorce easier, families will suffer. Marriage is not easy, and the ease of divorce will make it much more likely that those marriage vows which Lewis held so dear would be abandoned as soon as things became difficult.

An idealized, romanticized view of marriage is what attracts many people to its institution. It clearly can have a place within marriage but is not the full story as to what marriage is about. When divorce is made easy, then the real truth of marriage will be lost, and all that people will have is romantic ideals leading them from one relationship to the next, without understanding what is required to keep a marriage together. The couple should give and take to the needs of each other, but how can that come about if people are selfish, told marriage is just to satisfy their desires, and when it doesn’t they have an easy way out? [13] Tolkien knew the difficulties of marriage from personal experience; his marriage, like most, went through its ups and downs.[14] Because of the value he put to the marriage itself (and his love for Edith), he was able to make personal sacrifices. Marriage can be said to be, in a sense, is a happy doom, providentially established by the circumstance which God used to lead the couple together.[15] It is, as he was to discover, a kind of asceticism; only when one is devoted to the institution can one practice its demands.[16] But, once one has entered its domain, one begins to see the kind of martyrdom it places upon you, and that it is indeed a cross of its own, joyful and sorrowful all at once.

Footnotes

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, Mythopoeia. For the full poem, go here: http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/mythopoeia.html. For Lewis’s most succinct exposition on this theme, we can turn to his wonderful essay, “Myth Became Fact”: “What flows into you from myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is), and, therefore, every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths on the abstract level. Myth is the mountain whence all the different streams arise which become truths down here in the valley; in hoc valle abstractionis. Or, if you prefer, myth is the isthmus which connects the peninsular world of thoughts with the cast continent we really belong to. It is not like truth, abstract; nor it is, like direct experience, bound to the particular,” C.S. Lewis, “Myth Became Fact,” pages 39 – 43 in Undeceptions (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1971): 42.
[2] J.R.R. Tolkien. Letters. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981), 371 (Letter 291).
[3]Much of this can be seen in a letter Tolkien wrote to his Christopher in 1944. By accident, C.S. Lewis, Warnie Lewis, and Charles Williams had met the poet Roy Campbell at the Bird and Baby. Lewis did not warm up to the man. He had previously written a parody of him for the Oxford magazine. Tolkien, on the other hand, liked Campbell. It was lunchtime, and so Tolkien couldn’t be with the poet as he would have liked. But Campbell had wanted to meet Lewis and Tolkien, so he set up a time for an evening meeting with them. As Tolkien relates it, Lewis really showed his Protestant bias at it. He was more than a little hostile to Campbell, though it seems Campbell took it well. “There is a good deal of Ulster still left in C.S.L. if hidden from himself. […] If I could remember all that I heard in C.S.L.’s room that night it would fill several airletters. C.S.L. had taken a fair deal of port and was a little belligerent (insisted on reading out his lampoon again while R.C. laughed at him), but we were mostly obliged to listen to the guest,” ibid., 95 (Letter 83). Roy Campbell had been in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, even fought it in for the side of Franco, not because he agreed with everything that Franco stood for, but he wanted to defend the Catholics in the nation. He explained the horrible experiences he had while there, even nearly losing his life trying to help Carmelites escape from harm. Lewis had no interest in the stories. He didn’t care what was happening to the Catholics in Spain, and that really upset Tolkien. “C.S.L.’s reactions were odd. Nothing is a greater tribute to Red propaganda than the fact that he (who knows they are in all other subjects liars and traducers) believes all that is said against Franco, and nothing that is said for him. […] Yet if a Lutheran is put in jail he is up arms; but if Catholic priests are slaughtered – he disbelieves it (and I daresay really thinks they asked for it),” ibid., 96.
[4] Letter 49, found on pages 59 – 62 of Letters. It was found tucked away in his copy of Christian Behavior, which would later become a part of Lewis’s Mere Christianity. How much of this reply Tolkien let on to Lewis is difficult to know. It is possible that he wrote it and thought against sending it to Lewis, because he did not want to be seen as too harsh a critic of his friend, and so that was the end of his response. It is also quite possible he wrote down his thoughts and later used them in their Inkling conversations.
[5] ibid., Letters, 60.
[6] “No item of compulsory Christian morals is valid only for Christians,” ibid., 60.
[7] A.N. Wilson. C.S. Lewis: A Biography (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1990), 259.
[8] “Do I not say that your bringing in of the Mohammedans on p. 34 is a most stinking red-herring? I do not think you can possibly support your ‘policy’, by this argument, for by it you are giving away the very foundation of Christian marriage. The foundation is that this is the correct way of ‘running the human machine.’ Your argument reduces it merely to a way of (perhaps?) getting extra mileage out of a few selected machines,” J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters, 60.
[9] ibid., 61.
[10] ibid., 61.
[11] ibid., 62.
[12] ibid., 51 (Letter 43).
[13]Thus, Humphrey Carpenter relates another example of Tolkien’s sage advice: “‘There are many things that a man feels are legitimate even though they cause a fuss,’ he wrote to a son who was about to be married. ‘Let him not lie about them to his wife or lover. Cut them out – or if worth a fight: just insist. Such matters may arise frequently – the glass of beer, the pipe, the non writing of letters, the other friend, etc. etc. If the other side’s claims really are unreasonable (as they are at times between the dearest lovers and the most loving married folk) they are much better met by above board refusal and “fuss” than subterfuge,‘”Tolkien quoted in Humphrey Carpenter. The Inklings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979), 168.
[14] One of the greatest problems in his marriage, it seems, is that Edith lapsed, for quite some time, from the Catholicism she adopted to marry Tolkien. It was only much later that she was finally able to fully reconcile herself to the faith, but, by that time, there had been years of trouble between Tolkien and his wife. See Joseph Pearce. Tolkien: Man and Myth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998), 200.
[15] J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters, 51
[16] “No Man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial. Too few are told that – even those brought up ‘in the Church’. Those outside seem seldom to have heard it. When the glamour wars off, or merely works a bit thin, they think they have made a mistake, and that the real soul-mate is still to find. […] Hence divorce, to provide ‘if only.’ […] But the ‘real soul-mate’ is the one you are actually married to,” ibid., 51.

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