Levirate Marriage and the Family[ ]children. A matrilineal system is the mirror image of a patrilineal sys-
tem, although matrilineal descent systems are far less common than
patrilineal ones. In a matrilineal system, all members of a lineage share
a common female ancestor (see figure ). Ego and his siblings belong to
the lineage of their mother, that is, the lineage of their maternal grand-
mother. This lineage also includes all of the siblings of Ego’s mother and
the children of her sisters; her brothers’ children are accounted to their
mothers’ lineage.
All of these systems understand descent in biological terms. The
members of an individual’s descent group share common ancestors,
whether male, female, or both. However, membership in a descent
group can also be jural, based on the creation or assumption of a legal
relationship between an individual and members of the descent group.
In fact, these two ways of reckoning descent usually coincide: the jural
relationship is based on an assumption of a biological relationship.^80
An analysis of rabbinic texts on lineage and inheritance suggests that
the ancient rabbis did not employ an exclusively unilineal descent sys-
tem, but reckoned descent differently in different situations. The deter-
mination that the child of Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father is a
Figure 3. Matrilineal descent system (shaded figures are members
of Ego’s matrilineage)