The title comes from Aragorn's and Eowyn's debate (LoTR Bk. 5 Ch. 2), in which he says to her:
"A time may come soon … when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised."
And she answered: "All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more…"
I wanted to write a story reflecting the experience that an ordinary woman, one whose place was "in the house," would have been likely to have during the War of the Ring. Though a compelling character, Eowyn is a member of the elite, and her fighting skills set her even farther apart from the majority of women in Middle-Earth.