Editing Goldberry (section)

=== Sacrament of marriage ===

The scholar Brandon Best sees Goldberry's relationship to Tom Bombadil as a model of the [[sacrament of marriage]], something to be witnessed rather than explained. Further, they sing of all creation, celebrating the natural order, and they include themselves as part of that order, with Goldberry's song:<ref>{{cite journal |last=Best |first=Brandon |date=2018 |title=Romantic Theology as Revelation through Tom Bombadil and Goldberry in Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' |journal=Augsburg Honors Review |volume=11 |at=Article 6 |url=https://idun.augsburg.edu/honors_review/vol11/iss1/6}}</ref>

{{poem quote|Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather,
Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!<ref name="Old Forest" group=T/>}}

Robert Chapman-Morales notes that scholars such as L. Eugene Startzman and Jennifer Raimundo see Goldberry and Bombadil as embodiments of unexpected joy, an aspect of Tolkien's [[eucatastrophe]].<ref name="Startzman 1989">{{cite journal |last=Startzman |first=L. Eugene |date=1989 |title=Goldberry and Galadriel: The Quality of Joy |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=16 |issue=2 |at=Article 14 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss2/14}}</ref><ref name="Chapman-Morales 2020">{{cite journal |last=Chapman-Morales |first=Robert B. |date=2020 |title=Fearless Joy: Tom Bombadil's Function in The Lord of the Rings |journal=Mythlore |volume=38 |issue=2 |at=Article 5 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol38/iss2/5}}</ref> He quotes one of Tolkien's letters: "the government of a 'family' ... was not a monarchy ... It was a 'dyarchy', in which master and mistress had equal status, if different functions."<ref name="Letter 214" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=letter 214 to A. C. Nunn, draft 1958-1959 }}</ref><ref name="Chapman-Morales 2020"/> He notes also that Basso describes the couple's marital joy,<ref name="Basso 2008"/> and he remarks on their "mutual respect when we see how different they are, yet how perfectly they work together".<ref name="Chapman-Morales 2020"/>