Lucanus's Question

From Miss Taylor Caldwell's Dear and Glorious Physician. (I imagine few publishers (if any) today would have the courage to publish these words of the protagonist, Lucanus. The question, I think, would be fascistly kept from being asked in print. Though Lucanus speaks of ancient Rome his question of the decay of culture seems quite relevant.)

"Lucanus, though a physician, was freshly uncomfortable and embarrassed. So this is what the emancipation of Roman women had led to, this vulgar and unabashed wantonness, this witless shrieking, this half-drunken quarelling, this contentious chatter of business, gossip and politcs, this effrontery, this noisy insistence! He thought of Aurelia and his mother, Iris, skilled in household duties, gentleness, the care of children, the cherishing of husbands. They might have known little of Virgil or Homer, nor could they have discussed miliitary campaigns or legal suits of prominence in the public courts, as these women had done earlier, but they could bring joy and peace to a home, and honor, and their children and their husbands revered them, and divorce and adultery were unknown. Lucanus mused. Did a nation decline and decay when women won dominance and when no door of law, business or politics was closed to them, or did the dominance of women merely indicate that a nation was decaying?" (p. 319)