Why were there so few Dwarves in Middle-Earth? | Lord of the Rings Lore | Middle-Earth

The Dwarven race in the Lord of the Rings was a very slow growing population, which made it hard for them to recover after some great war or the loss of a kingdom. It's quite strange that they had this problem despite their relatively long lives, and it was probably one of the biggest hurdles that they faced as a race. Hey guys it's Card here, and in today's episode we'll be exploring the causes behind this small Dwarven population. So during the Third Age, Dwarves would typically live for around 250 years, and they would only experience old age towards the last 10 years or so of their life. They also came of age quite early, when they were 40 years old, and so they had quite a few years in which they could increase their numbers and strengthen their population. However these potential years were reduced somewhat, since Dwarves typically married very late in their lives, usually when they were over 90 years old, and they had very few children with 4 being considered a rarity. Now since they married late in life, but they came of age quite early in comparison, this would mean that in times of war and strife, many young Dwarves would fall in battle before they had the chance to start a family and have Dwarven children, and so their population was stifled during wartime. Tolkien also wrote that the Dwarven numbers would suffer greatly while the Dwarves lacked a permanent home, and while they were a wandering people, which happened quite often throughout their history. The final reason, and probably the most important one, was that the Dwarven population wasn't perfectly balanced by gender, and in fact according to Gimli, out of all the Dwarven race, only a third of them at most were female, and so around half the male Dwarves would never have the opportunity to start their own family. These numbers are actually made worse when we acknowledge that some of these Dwarven women had no desire to settle down, and some of them desired a male Dwarf that they couldn't have, and in their typical Dwarven stubbornness they would accept no other suitor. The male Dwarves also played a part in this decline, for among them there were some Dwarves that were so dedicated to their crafts that they had no desire for marriage, and they preferred to become master artisans rather than family men. It's also quite amusing that none of the other races could tell the difference between male and female Dwarves, since they were so alike in voice and appearance, and due to these similarities, some members of the race of men believed that there was no such thing as Dwarven woman, and that the Dwarves simply grew out of stone. Anyway friends this wraps up today's video and I hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Dwarven population, which of these causes do you think was most responsible for their small population, and can you think of any other things that might have stifled the growth of their numbers? As always if you're interested check out our Facebook, Patreon, Instagram, Twitter, Discord and some of our affiliate links in the video description, and if you enjoyed this video leave a like and subscribe to join our fellowship today. I hope to see you all in my next video, where together we'll once again explore the magical world and lore of Middle-Earth.