The fact that this is the only known occasion when a Hittite king
interferes in the customs and domestic practices of one of his vassal
states highlights the strong stand Hittite authorities took against
incest, wherever in Hatti’s territories it occurred.
A large number of clauses in the Hittite Laws are devoted to
sexual offences of this and other kinds. Bans on sex between family
members extended from those mentioned above to sexual relations
between mother and son, father and daughter, father and son,
stepmother and son (unless the son’s father is deceased), son-in-
law and mother-in-law. But there were exceptions. The law allowed
a man to sleep with slave women who were sisters, and with their
mother as well, without committing an offence. It also condoned
sex between in-laws–in cases where the husband or wife of one of
them had predeceased their spouse. Indeed it positively
encouraged, if not actually mandated, what appears to be marriage
between a widow and a male member of her husband’s family.
Thus:
If a man has a wife, and the man dies, his brother shall take
his widow as wife. (If the brother dies), his father shall take
her. When afterwards his father dies, his (i.e. the father’s)
brother shall take the woman whom he had.^2This recalls the biblically attested custom of levirate marriage (from
the Latinlevir,‘brother-in-law’). Deuteronomy 25:5–6 tells us that
if brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son,
his widow must not marry outside the family but become the wife
of another of the brothers. Thefirst son of the new union must bear
the name of thefirst husband‘so that his name will not be blotted
out from Israel’. The purpose of the corresponding Hittite law is
not made clear, but it’s very likely intended to ensure that the
deceased’s family takes responsibility for his wife’s future welfare.
Such a provision may well have had practical application many
times, given the frequency of Hittite military campaigns and the
inevitable battle casualties that resulted from them, leaving behind
many a widow and no doubt fatherless children. If the marriage
with an in-law were one in the full sense of the word, then another
NO SEX PLEASE,WE’RE HITTITE 137