- Women engage in trade, home maintenance, and in Utopia’s militia if they choose
- Though marriage remains conventional, economic participation is common.
Compared to Tudor England, where female agency was tightly circumscribed (unless noble), this portrayal was startling—and subtly critical of gender roles.
War and Foreign Policy: Defense Over Expansion
Tudor foreign policy was aggressive—Church wars, dynastic claims, Catholic–Protestant conflicts. Utopia advocates:
- Military only for defense; no colonial expansion or preemptive war.
- Education fosters diplomacy, while greed and glory are restrained.
For a Europe on the brink of imperialist ambition, More offered an alternate moral compass: measured, defensive, altruistic.
Civic Duty and Moral Philosophy
Utopians view themselves as public servants:
- Officeholders are rotated, answerable, and subject to removal.
- Philosophy, wisdom, and service—not wealth or birth—define leadership.
- When Tudor England’s councils and court were rife with patronage and corruption, More’s vision proposed accountability and merit, not class or bribery shutdown123