Men, Halflings, and Hero Worship

"It is probably a very considerable compliment to the ability of Dr. Tolkien at weaving a spell; not until weeks after I had completed reading his monumental saga and was lovingly working through the appendices did a very curious fact strike me. In four volumes, comprising substantially over a thousand pages of un-large type, there is almost nothing which could be construed as love interest. The books are, in fact, almost womanless. There are at least thirty major male characters, and at least as many more about whom we know something, who are described briefly and given a line or two to speak. But even including the supernumeraries, there are exactly seven female characters in the entire trilogy." -- Marion Zimmer Bradley