Middle-Earth Reconstruction in the Fourth Age
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2022 1:09 am
What would have happened in Middle-Earth in the first decades of the Fourth Age. Here's one scenario.
The young and middle-aged male populations of Gondor, Rohan, Dale, etc, would have been severely depleted as a result of deaths and disabling injuries incurred during the War of the Ring. Hence in the societies of mortal humans in the West and North, many positions in previously male-dominated sectors of those societies - including their political leadership, running of workshops, farms, etc, management of institutes of lore, etc, would have to be be assumed by women during the first few decades of the Fourth Age.
The resulting social and cultural changes regarding sex roles would become permanent. They would cause fertility rates to fall to replacement level, or below. Thus Aragorn, Eomer, etc, faced with the problem of repopulating their kingdoms, would have to resort to large-scale immigration. The migrants would be sourced from among the Dunlendings, Haradrim, Easterlings and Variags. Over time these immigrants would also come to share leading positions in their adopted societies.
I think this is a plausible scenario, and it would be interesting to consider how it could develop further. One potential consequence is that the immigrants from the East and South would bring with them a different perspective on Third Age events than those of the peoples of West and North, and these perspectives would be passed on to their descendants. This could make for some interesting historical debates by a century or two into the Fourth Age.
Whatever one thinks of the scenario I have sketched above, I think it is undeniable that the reconstruction of the societies of the Western kingdoms after the War of the Ring, the cultural reorientation of those societies after the elimination of a long-standing enemy whose threat had shaped them for centuries, and the renovation of their relations with the peoples of the East and South after these were no longer under Sauron's hegemony, would have provided some interesting challenges.
The young and middle-aged male populations of Gondor, Rohan, Dale, etc, would have been severely depleted as a result of deaths and disabling injuries incurred during the War of the Ring. Hence in the societies of mortal humans in the West and North, many positions in previously male-dominated sectors of those societies - including their political leadership, running of workshops, farms, etc, management of institutes of lore, etc, would have to be be assumed by women during the first few decades of the Fourth Age.
The resulting social and cultural changes regarding sex roles would become permanent. They would cause fertility rates to fall to replacement level, or below. Thus Aragorn, Eomer, etc, faced with the problem of repopulating their kingdoms, would have to resort to large-scale immigration. The migrants would be sourced from among the Dunlendings, Haradrim, Easterlings and Variags. Over time these immigrants would also come to share leading positions in their adopted societies.
I think this is a plausible scenario, and it would be interesting to consider how it could develop further. One potential consequence is that the immigrants from the East and South would bring with them a different perspective on Third Age events than those of the peoples of West and North, and these perspectives would be passed on to their descendants. This could make for some interesting historical debates by a century or two into the Fourth Age.
Whatever one thinks of the scenario I have sketched above, I think it is undeniable that the reconstruction of the societies of the Western kingdoms after the War of the Ring, the cultural reorientation of those societies after the elimination of a long-standing enemy whose threat had shaped them for centuries, and the renovation of their relations with the peoples of the East and South after these were no longer under Sauron's hegemony, would have provided some interesting challenges.