[ ]Mapping the Familylevirate marriage.^61 Furthermore, we learn that in cases when there was
no chance that a marriage could lead to children, there is no need to do
halitza or levirate.^62
Finally, some of the early rabbis declare that a levirate union be-
t ween a ma n a nd h is ch i ld less brot her’s w idow, even when t he woma n is
technically permitted to the levir and the potential for offspring exists,
may be incestuous if the motive for the union is improper. The Tosefta
states, “One who has intercourse with his yevama for the sake of [her]
beauty, or property, we regard him as if he had approached a forbidden
relative (k’ilu pogei’a b’erva), and the child [born of the union] is close to
being a bastard.”^63 This concern is reiterated in both the Bavli and the
Yerushalmi, where Abba Shaul states that a levir motivated by his sister-
in-law’s beauty, the desire to be married to her, “or something else” is
engaging in illicit intercourse.^64 Given that the motives of the levir and
the widow are known only to them, these statements seem to indicate a
profound distrust of or distaste for levirate marriage on the part of Pal-
estinian rabbis and a sense that it is essentially incest under the guise of
concern for the deceased.
A marriage between a man and his deceased brother’s wife is inher-
ently problematic in a society that normally regards such a union as
incestuous. Rabbinic discussions of levirate marriage are aware of this
problem and acknowledge it explicitly in their exegesis of Leviticus
and and Deuteronomy . The result is neither a rejection of levirate
nor a wholesale abandonment of incest prohibitions when levirate is
mandated. Instead, the rabbis restrict levirate in situations in which fa-
milial ties exist between the levir and the yevama beyond the ones cre-
ated by the latter’s marriage to the former’s brother.
Incest prohibitions serve, according to Carol Meyers, as a negative
definition of family: a person whom one cannot marry is a person with
whom one has a family connection.^65 Of course, not every relative is a
forbidden sexual partner, nor is every forbidden sexual relationship an
indication of kinship. The marriage restrictions on the priestly caste are
not incest prohibitions, and biblical law permits marriage to cousins.
However, Meyers is correct in arguing that extended incest prohibitions
are indicative of a complex rather than a nuclear notion of family. The
incest rules found in Leviticus and extended vertically in certain cases
by the rabbis suggest a broad definition of family, encompassing several