A major problem for modern readers in the pseudo-medieval worlds in which most fantasy is set is the gender thing. In such a society, where most of the action will more or less by definition involve combat with edged weapons, women are again pretty much by definition relegated to a supporting role. Women who try to compete in this role die pretty quick.
I watched a supposedly semi-historical movie recently where the leading lady was the best archer around. I have no problems with women being skilled at archery, or fencing, or any other martial art. But a woman is probably doing pretty good if she can pull a bow half the weight of a top male archer, which means he can shoot her from far outside her range. They found some bowstaves from the old English longbow days and are still trying to figure out how they pulled them.
Robert Jordan found a way around the gender thing in his looonnnnggg series by making (some) women the sole practicioners of magic. So men have a monopoly on fighting and women on magic. A logical explanation for why women in this society are able to maintain a roughly equal status. Makes the story a lot more interesting, imo. Series has a LOT of other problems, though.
Your comments about the class structure are quite right. It’s built into LOTR, but I think it goes right over Americans’ heads. (To our credit.)
Pippin is the closest thing hobbitry has to the Prince of Wales, and Merry is the equivalent of say the heir to a dukedom. Frodo is a cousin and very wealthy, in the upper 1% probably of hobbit society.
Sam is Frodo’s gardener, and very much knows his place. But as the story goes on, Sam rises above his humble beginnings and by the end is fully accepted by the others as an equal. He has ennobled himself by his actions.
But the point is that you are quite correct. In societies of this type, gender and class roles are hard and fast, and generally taken for granted by all.
I don’t know why so many writers insist on having their main characters have the mental life of a 21st century American Harvard graduate. It’s much more interesting when a really good writer helps you penetrate the mind of someone who is reallly different, and understand why he thinks as he does.
James Clavell did this very well in Shogun. The English protagonist himself, while much closer to us, had a number of attitudes very different from ours due to the time difference. And the Japanese were just utterly alien, both to the Europeans of the time and to us. Yet he made us understand how and why they were as they were, and to see that their actions and attitudes made perfect sense from their POV.
To my mind, that’s what a good writer does. I wish more writers of fantasy attempted it.