Further, before someone goes all, "No, it's based on medieval values..."
No, it's not. Tolkien used a quasi-medieval setting, but its values and social structure are distinctly early modern. There is no concept of serfdom. There is no relegation of marriage to pure faith-based politics. The Shire is basically a 19th century English village without industry. Fantasy is not medieval; it simply borrows its aesthetic from pre-industrial time periods. Similarly, a medieval or pre-industrial aesthetic to a fantasy setting does nothing to firmly fix its values as those of a pre-industrial Indo-European Christian society, as that is not how storytelling or worldbuilding works.
Ultimately, the structure, characteristics, and values of a society in a fantasy setting is up to the discretion of the author, and the extent to which it demands either external suspension of disbelief or internal logic is all up to the parameters of the worldbuilding and the storytelling styles being employed... by the author.
