Levirate Marriage and the Family[ ]tionships are presumably strained because of jealousy or a sense on the
part of these women that the wife has displaced them. The Mishnah’s
assumption need not have been true in all families, but surely the fam-
ily dynamic would contribute to a widow’s desire to remain part of her
husband’s family or leave it, just as it might influence the levir’s decision
regarding levirate or halitza.
The Levirate Widow and the Deceased
We have seen that some women were reluctant to marry their brothers-
in-law. The Mishnah and Tosefta and the Talmuds acknowledge this re-
luctance, describing scenarios in which women used vows or claims of
nonconsummation to avoid or escape levirate marriage. Furthermore,
these texts portray rabbis and courts as willing partners in promoting
women’s preferences, even if it involved deceiving the levir.
What motivated women to avoid levirate unions? Mishnah Ketubot
: empowers a court to compel a man to divorce his wife if he has a
physical condition or occupation that she finds disgusting. The Mishnah
concludes with a story about a woman who was unwilling to marry her
levir and apparently cited as her reason his work as a tanner. The sages
ruled that her refusal was legitimate, because she had the right to say,
“For your brother, I was able to accept [the stench], but for you I am not
a ble.”^104 This case suggests that a woman may bear some discomfort for
a man she finds attractive or compatible and that a woman may simply
find some men unattractive or incompatible. Women may resist levirate
marriage if they found their brothers-in-law unattractive or believed
their motives for levirate were financial. A woman with property and/
or a sizable marriage settlement may believe she will be able to secure
a better husband than her levir, or she may have no wish to remarry. As
the Bavli acknowledges, a married woman has the opportunity to inter-
act with her brother-in-law; when he presents himself to her as a poten-
tial husband, she may already have a strong like or dislike for him.
What, in turn, might have motivated a woman to desire marriage to
her brother-in-law? Again, the Bavli acknowledges the role of emotion; a
woma n may a l ready be emot iona l ly at t racted or at tached to her brot her-
in-law. The Bavli also suggests that a woman might wish to marry in
order to have a child. Bavli Ketubot a imagines a situation in which
the yevama wa nts to ma r r y wh i le t he lev i r does not. It ack nowledges t hat