Promiscuity has certainly increased since the time of the Mechaber, most unfortunately. This is certainly a bad thing. Historical kidnapping of women has nothing to do with anything mentioned. But anyone paying attention to the news even just over the last 11 months regarding contemporary mistreatment of women, knows that society in 2018 is extremely horrible in this regard. This is a direct result of the mixing of the genders at work, at school (even New York City public schools were gender segregated to some extent at one point) and in the street. Yes, women remaining at home like Sarah Imainu and as paskened by everyone before and after Chazal through Shulchan Aruch and later were absolutely 100% Torah correct and humanely correct based on normal and proper gender segregation norms. What we have today is a travesty, not better than the past, and far from the ideal. The ideal is what the Torah, Chazal and the poskim rule, as I earlier cited.
The Aruch Hashulchan decries the phenomenon with women you described. He writes that since it became so bad, therefore it is permissible to say Shema in their presence.