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I think you are seeing a reflection of cultural norms. If you look at some of the more modern books you've listed and compare them to films made at the time of their writing you will also see a lot less sex. If you go even further back to Dickens, I think you will find sex to be absent from most mainstream novels and literature of that time. It just wasn't done. This is even more true when you understand that some of Dickens work first appeared serialized in newspapers (there were bound into book form later).
It also helps to remember that books like DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer were banned from publication and distribution for many years because of the content (much of it specifically because of the sex scenes). Tropic of Cancer was first published in 1934 but did not get released in the US until 1961. Lady Chatterly's Lover was first published in Italy in 1928 but did not get released in the UK until 1960.
If you wanted your book to be read by a wide audience... you wrote what would be accepted. This is as true today as it was then.
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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke
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