Levirate Marriage and the Family[ ]which of them is best suited to fulfill the levirate obligation that devolves
on all of them. At the same time, brothers might have different opinions
about what course of action would best serve their interests. The possi-
bility of a levirate marriage between the widow and one of the surviving
brothers might lead to dissent among the brothers. The institution of
levirate may have been intended to preserve a family, but it has the po-
tential to undermine familial bonds among the surviving relatives. This
chapter considers the potential for tension between the interests of the
living brothers and how levirate law responds to that tension.
The rabbis are concerned not only with resolving the levirate bond,
but also with the levir’s motives for choosing a levirate union. On one
hand, the Mishnah and later rabbinic texts acknowledge that it is the le-
vir who makes the decision to perform levirate marriage or to submit to
halitza. The decisive role taken by Judah in promoting a union between
Onan and Tamar and later preventing a union between Tamar and his
surviving son, Shelah, is not translated into rabbinic discussions about
the role of the deceased’s father in promoting or discouraging levirate
marriage. Nor does Naomi’s role in bringing about Boaz’s marriage to
Ruth occasion consideration of the role of the extended family in en-
couraging levirate. While affirming that the choice between levirate and
halitza is the levir’s to make, the rabbis betray anxiety about the reasons
the levir might choose levirate, maintaining that levirate should be mo-
tivated by the desire to fulfill a commandment, not the desire to marry
an attractive or wealthy woman. The discussions about the levir’s mo-
tives suggest that the rabbis are well aware that levirate is less about the
commitment of the living to the claims of the dead than it is about the
living seeking to promote their best interests. While the Bavli includes
a critique of men who would marry their sisters-in-law for the wrong
reasons, it acknowledges and to some extent accepts the primacy of the
living and their needs and wishes. In the end, the ancient rabbis place
the wishes of the surviving brother(s) ahead of those of the deceased,
privileging the concerns of the living over the claim of the dead and em-
phasizing the right of the individual to place his own interests above
those of his extended family. Brothers may have a claim on each other,
but that claim is not absolute, nor is the extended family expected to
enforce that claim on behalf of the deceased.