[ ]From Wife to Widow and Back Againand make vows. We will consider the conditions that render a woman
a yevama rather than an almana, her status during the waiting period
between her husband’s death and her brother-in-law’s action, the reso-
lution of her status through levirate or halitza, and her situation after
her status is resolved. Finally, we will look at the yevama’s relat ionsh ip to
her family of origin and the family of her late husband, in an attempt to
determine the factors that might have influenced her preference for levi-
rate or halitza, insofar as she might have any choice in the matter.
Rabbinic material about levirate suggests that a yevama is a study in
contrasts and complexity. Her husband is dead, but she does not have
the freedom of an almana widow. She is no longer married but is still in
some ways bound by ties created by her marriage. She is not the wife or
even the betrothed of her brother-in-law, but she has a legal relationship
to him that prescribes some of her actions and precludes her remarriage
to another man. Even in those areas in which she is treated like a be-
trothed woman, the parallel is imperfect, because unlike the betrothed
young woman most often assumed by the Mishnah and Tosefta, the le-
virate widow is no longer under the authority of her father. Her relation-
ship to the family of her deceased husband and his brothers — one of
whom may become her husband — is unclear as well; while her brothers-
in-law have some claim on her, that claim is not as strong as that of a
fiancé or husband. No male relative can exercise complete control over
the yevama, but neither is she fully autonomous.
This irregular status may explain the anomalous position of the le-
virate widow, a woman who can be forced into a levirate union against
her will but who dominates the ritual of halitza. Moreover, the Mishnah
acknowledges that in some cases a lev irate w idow may actively resist le-
virate marriage. These mishnayot, discussed below, portray the yevama
thwarting the power of her levir, and to some extent the law, through
speech. This “subversive” activity makes the yevama doubly problem-
atic; her status is irregular and must be resolved, but any attempt on her
part to play an active role in that choice, a role other than that assigned
to her by the rabbis, threatens the stability of a system that seeks to con-
trol women and their sexuality.
While the levirate widow has less control over her future than a nor-
ma l w idow or a n u n ma r r ied woma n who has reached her major it y, t here
is a move in the Mishnah and Tosefta to improve her situation, to give