Levirate Marriage and the Family[ ]may now find themselves sharing a home and a husband. If the deceased
left several brothers, there may be some disagreement as to the disposi-
tion of his widow and property. The older generation may want their son
to marry his sister-in-law, or they may not. The widow’s family of origin
may prefer that she return to them or marry into another family, or they
may hope that she will remain part of her late husband’s family. While
the rabbis’ treatment of levirate focuses on the levir and the widow, the
impact of their decision will be felt throughout the family and may be
influenced by the ties that already exist between them and among mem-
bers of their families.
This chapter considers the ways in which rabbinic Judaism con-
structs family. It argues that families are complex institutions that may
comprise smaller units embedded within larger units, or a large network
that can be divided into many, sometimes overlapping parts. Each part,
whether multiple generations of individuals who can trace their lineage
to a single male ancestor or a married couple, is considered a family
unit. At the same time, I will argue that while the rabbis acknowledged
multiple constructs of family, they privileged one of the smallest units,
what we now call the nuclear family, a unit composed of a husband, a
wife, and their children. It is, I contend, the rabbis’ focus on this type of
family that influenced their restrictive reading of levirate.
Today, many people use the word “family” without specifying pre-
cisely what t hey mea n; t he word is so com mon t hat we a ssu me its mea n-
ing is known and requires no explanation. In fact, the word may connote
a variety of configurations. A physician taking a family history from a
pat ient may be concer ned on ly w it h t he pat ient’s pa rents, g ra ndpa rents,
and siblings, those whose medical history is most likely to shed light on
that of the patient. A child attending a family reunion or wedding may
be bewildered by the number of unfamiliar faces, asking her parents,
“How am I related to these people?” A person may identify as his cousin
an individual who in fact is not related to him by blood or by one mar-
riage, but only through a complex network of marriage and patterns of
family association. In short, we use the word “family” to describe many
groups, often without modifying the word to indicate which “family”
we mean.
In contemporary American usage, then, “family” is a broad term that
can indicate various relationships. A person may speak of his family of