Levirate Marriage and the Family in Ancient Judaism

Levirate Marriage and the Family

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When a woman is left childless on her husband’s death, the

husband’s brother shall marry her, and shall call the child that shall

be born by the name of the deceased and rear him as heir to the

estate; for this will at once be profitable to the public welfare, houses

not dying out and property remaining with the relatives, and it will

moreover bring the women an alleviation of their misfortune to live

with the nearest kinsman of their former husbands.^57

It is unclea r what Josephus mea ns when he cla ims t he child born of lev i-
rate ma r r iage sha l l be ca l led “by t he na me of t he deceased.” He cou ld be
a lluding to a naming custom, whereby the child would be named for his
dead u ncle. T he “na m i ng” here cou ld a lso be t he a ssig n ment of t he ch i ld
to t he deceased as his heir; v is-à-v is in her ita nce, t he chi ld is rega rded as
the son of the deceased, not of the levir.
The beneficiaries of levirate, according to Josephus, are widows and
the community; another beneficiary is the deceased, whose “house”
will now continue. This explains why the response to a man’s refusal to
marry his brother’s widow leads to a shaming ritual; he is, according to
Josephus, “doing outrage to the memory of his deceased brother” and
carries the “reproach” of the community “throughout his life.” The levir
has an obligation to his brother, his widowed sister-in-law, and his fam-
ily; failure to meet this responsibility is condemned by the community,
regardless of his reason.^58
Levirate is touched on in passing in several portions of T h e Te st a m e nt s
of the Twelve Patriarchs. In The Testament of Zebulon, the patriarch al-
ludes to lev irate law in recount ing t he sa le of Joseph by his brot hers. The
brothers’ willingness to abandon Joseph is compared to a levir’s refusal
to provide offspring for his brother.^59 In both cases, a man’s action (or
refusal to act) is described as distinctly nonfraternal.
The treatment of the story of Judah and Tamar in The Testament of
Judah glosses over the issue of levirate, focusing instead on Judah’s sin-
ful behavior. Judah blames his sons’ deaths and his own refusal to give
Tamar to Shela h on his Canaanite w ife.^60 The patriarch emphasizes that
i ntercou rse w it h Ta ma r, h is daug hter-i n-law, was “a n abom i nat ion” t hat
he never repeated.^61 T here is no ment ion of t he bi r t h of Ta ma r’s ch i ld ren;
Judah addresses his words to Shelah’s children, making no mention of
sons by Tamar.^62