The impending separation for a quarter of a century, added to the danger of the soldier's apostasy or death in far-off regions, often disrupted the family ties.

Many recruits, before entering upon their military career, gave their wives a divorce so as not to doom them to perpetual widowhood.
At the end of 1834 rumors began to spread among the Jewish masses concerning a law which was about to be issued forbidding early marriages but exempting from conscription those married prior to the promulgation of the law.

A panic ensued.

Everywhere feverish haste was displayed in marrying off boys from ten to fifteen years old to girls of an equally tender age.

Within a few months there appeared in every city hundreds and thousands of such couples, whose marital relations were often confined to playing with nuts or bones.