[ ]Notes
Introduction (pages xv – x xvi)
- While rabbinic law assumes the possibility of polygyny, descriptions of the
nuclear family in rabbinic literature tend to focus on a husband and one wife.
. Contemporary scholars recognize the Roman family as a “core nuclear
family, i.e. the conjugal couple and dependent children,” located in a household
that might include other members of the extended family, i.e., a widowed mother
or an unmarried adult child, as well as servants and slaves (Beryl Rawson, ed.,
Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1966 ], ). At the same time, Roman law allowed the paterfamilias to retain
considerable control over his adult sons and daughters, even after marriage. For
discussions of the Roman family, see Rawson, ed., Marriage, Divorce, and Chil-
dren in Ancient Rome, and Beryl Rawson, ed., The Family in Ancient Rome: New
Perspectives (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986 ). - Many studies of Jewish marriage understand “levirate” to be an adjective
describing a specific form of marriage. However, “levirate” is used regularly in
kinship studies as a noun to describe a union between a widow and a man from
her deceased husband’s kin. It is recognized as a noun by dictionaries, which
identif y “leviratic” or “leviratical” as adjectival forms of the noun. In this book,
I use “levirate” as both a noun and an adjective, preserving the common use of
the word in both Judaica and social science research.
While some societies mandate levirate even when the deceased leaves
children, Judaism mandates it only when there are no surviving children or
grandchildren. - Deut. 5: 5 – 1.
- Ps. 133 : 1.
- T he Hebrew Bible uses ma scu l i ne nou ns a nd verbs to refer to t he ch i ld bor n
of the levirate union. Later commentators explore the role of female offspring in
obviating the need for levirate.
. The Bible does not consider the possibility that a widow might not want
to enter into a levirate union. Implicit in the biblical text is the likelihood that
she has no choice in the matter. As we will see in Chapter 5 , later authorities do