[ ]From Wife to Widow and Back Againwomen may want children to support them when they are old and to
arrange for their burial. A husband and children represent security for
a woman; perhaps some widows viewed levirate as insurance against a
life without a home and family.
There is no suggestion in tractate Yevamot that a woman would con-
sider entering a levirate union out of a sense of obligation to her dead
husband. There are several indications that husbands were willing to
assist their wives in avoiding the possibility of levirate after their death:
A woman who vows to derive no benefit from her husband’s
brother — [if she makes the vow] in her husband’s lifetime, they
force him to perform halitza. [If she makes the vow] after her
husband’s death, they ask him to perform halitza. But if she
intended this {that is, to avoid levirate marriage through the vow},
even if [she made the vow] in her husband’s lifetime, they ask him
to perform halitza.^105The vows of a married woman could be annulled by her husband. If a
woman made a vow not to benefit from her brother-in-law, and her hus-
band allowed the vow to stand, it is possible that he was knowingly help-
ing her to avoid a possible levirate marriage. Bavli Ketubot b describes
a man giving his wife a conditional divorce before leaving on a journey.
Here, too, one motivation for the conditional divorce might be the hus-
band’s desire to protect his wife from levirate marriage or from the need
to wait for his brother to release her.
Conclusions
Rabbinic texts focus on the status of the yevama from the time of her
husband’s death until her marriage to her brother-in-law or her release
through halitza. The levirate widow is no longer under the control of
her husband. She is “assigned” to the levir from the moment of her hus-
band’s death but is not yet, and may never be, under his control. Thus
the levirate widow is an anomaly, a woman who is neither wholly depen-
dent on or independent of a male relative.
The rabbis are uncomfortable with this anomaly. They are also
uncomfortable with the anomaly that is levirate marriage — a quasi-
betrothal created not by the levir’s actions but by his brother’s death and
a marriage “formalized” by sexual intercourse and without a woman’s