While in the Roman empire the marriage and birthrate were permitted to decline more and more, the Jews maintained far different customs. The Jewess was not entitled to choose her own husband; he was chosen for her by her father. But she regarded marriage as a duty which she faithfully performed. The Talmud advises: “When thy daughter has attained maturity, set one of thy slaves free and betroth her to him.” The Jews likewise faithfully obeyed the commandment of their God: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Accordingly the Jews have steadily increased in spite of persecution and oppression; they are staunch opponents of Malthusianism. Tacitus said of them: “They firmly hold together and readily assist one another, but are hostile and full of hatred against all others. They never eat or sleep with enemies, and though very much inclined to sensual passion, they refrain from pairing with foreign women. Yet they are eager to increase their tribe. To destroy their offspring is a sin to them; and the souls of those who have been killed in battle or executed, they consider immortal. Therefore they combine love for propagation with a contempt for death.” But Tacitus hated and despised the Jews because they, regardless of their paternal creed, eagerly accumulated wealth. He calls them “the meanest people,” “an ugly nation.” Under Roman rule, the Jews became more and more closely linked with one another, and during the long time of suffering they were doomed to endure from this time on through the entire middle ages, that intimate family life developed among them, which still is regarded as a sort of model by bourgeois society. In Roman society meanwhile, that process of decay and dissolution took place that brought the empire to an end. The debauchery bordering on madness was opposed by the opposite extreme, rigorous self-denial. Asceticism now assumed religious forms, as the debaucheries had previously done. Eccentric fanaticism made propaganda for it. The boundless luxury and extravagance of the ruling classes was in striking contrast with the want and misery of the millions and millions of people who were brought to Italy into servitude by the conquering Romans from all the countries of the world known at that time. Among these there also were ever so many women, torn from their homes, their parents, their husbands and children, who were most deeply afflicted by their misfortune and longed for liberation. Many Roman women who were thoroughly disgusted by what was going on about them, were in a similar mental state. Any change in their position seemed desirable. A profound longing for change, for redemption, manifested itself in wide circles, and the Redeemer seemed to approach. The conquest of the Jewish realm and Jerusalem by the Romans, resulted in the destruction of national independence, and brought forth idealists among the ascetics of that country who predicted the coming of a new kingdom with freedom and happiness for all.