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LEVIRATE MARRIAGE

A cross-cultural phenomenon whereby the nearest kinsman of a man who dies without sons marries his widow. In ancient Israel, the first son of the levirate union (from Lat. levir, “brother-in-law”) was considered the dead man’s heir.

Deut. 25:5-10 imposes the obligation of levirate marriage on a surviving brother if he and the deceased had “lived together,” i.e., had not divided their patrimony. The last section of the law (Deut. 25:7-10) deals with the case where the brother refuses. The widow brings a complaint to the elders, who establish her brother-in-law’s unwillingness to marry her. She then performs three acts designed to humiliate the brother-in-law for his refusal; presumably these acts release both widow and brother-in-law from further levirate obligation.

The primary purpose of the law is to provide the deceased man with a son to inherit his property and thereby establish his “name,” i.e., his lineage, memory, and in some sense his continued existence. A secondary purpose of the levirate may have been to provide the deceased’s wife with the economic security and social status of marriage and children. It is much less likely that law was intended to keep the deceased man’s property within his family by preventing his widow from taking it into a second marriage. There is no biblical evidence that a childless widow would have inherited her husband’s property (cf. Num. 27).

Two passages suggest that kinsmen other than the deceased’s brother had a moral if not legal obligation to marry the widow. In Gen. 38 Tamar is deemed righteous for providing her dead husband with an heir by tricking her father-in-law into having sex with her. The book of Ruth assumes that it is an act of faithfulness for the deceased’s nearest kinsman to marry his widow and provide him an heir.

Levirate marriage is discussed in the rabbinic tractate Yebamot and underlies the debate between Jesus and the Sadduccees narrated in Matt. 22:23-33 (= Mark 12:18-27 = Luke 2:27-40).

Bibliography. S. Niditch, “The Wrong Woman Righted: An Analysis of Genesis 38,,” HTR 72 (1979): 143-49; C. Pressler, The View of Women Found in Deuteronomic Family Laws. BZAW 216 (Berlin, 1993); R. Westbrook, “The Law of the Biblical Levirate,” Revue internationale des droits de l’antiquité, 3rd ser., 24 (1977): 65-87; repr. in Property and the Family in Biblical Law. JSOTSup 113 (Sheffield, 1981), 69-89.

Carolyn Pressler

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

LEVIRATE MARRIAGE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)