What did charity look like in cultures other than Medieval Europe?

You mean chivalry? Wikipedia says that the European Christians actually got it from Muslims, whose version was more extreme. This probably includes the doctrine of courtly love), which is the source of chivalrous ideals on the treatment of women.

In contrast, one website says the ideal wife of a Japanese samurai would also be a strong person, so perhaps bushido took the opposite attitude. (Internet searches on this turn up too much modern stuff for me to get any good idea.)