Levirate Marriage and the Family[ ]not portray the extended family as a source of support for levirate mar-
riage. Instead, they focus on the parties most affected by levirate, the
levir and the widow, and consider how they play out the bond that has
been generated by the death of their brother and husband. Levirate, as
imagined by the rabbis, focuses not so much on a family challenged by
death as on individuals who may or may not choose to establish a new
family, one that is founded on the death of a relative but that has no ob-
ligations to him beyond its creation.