Levirate Marriage and the Family[ ]brother of the deceased by the same father. We said to him: If you
wish to marry her, marry her; if not, stretch your right leg out to
her [so she can perform halitza]....
f. At an earlier time, when their intention was to fulfill a
commandment, levirate took precedence over halitza. Now,
when it is not their intention to fulfill a commandment, they
said: Halitza takes precedence over levirate.
g. Rami bar Hama said R. Isaac said: They went back to saying
that levirate takes precedence over halitza.
h. R. Nahman bar Isaac said to him: Have people improved?
i. At the beginning, they were of the opinion of Abba Saul;
eventually, they were of the opinion of the sages. As it is
taught: Abba Saul says: One who marries his sister-in-law for
the sake of [her] beauty, or for the sake of marriage {that is,
because he wants her as his wife} or for another reason {many
commentators: her money or his brother’s estate}, it is as if he
approached a forbidden relative and I am close to designating
the child [of such a union] a mamzer. But the sages say: “Her
husband’s brother shall unite with her” — in any case.^41This passage underscores the problems implicit in a form of marriage
designed solely for the benefit of a third party. On one hand, the Torah
calls on a man to provide children for his deceased brother. It is under-
standable that the rabbis would therefore encourage or at least support
levirate marriage. On the other hand, the rabbis cannot contemplate
forcing a man into a levirate union, given the possibility of refusal de-
tailed in Deuteronomy : – . The ideal compromise, as Rav states in
[C], is to allow the levir to choose.
The rabbis have, in fact, removed several of the disadvantages to a
man considering a levirate marriage. In doing so, they have made levi-
rate unions almost indistinguishable from regular marriages. However,
they now face a dilemma: a man might now choose levirate not out of a
sense of duty to his brother, but for one of the many reasons a man might
choose to make any marriage. A man might find his brother’s widow at-
tractive, or he might desire the property she brought into the marriage
or the estate left by his brother. In that case, the union will formally
be a levirate union — the partners will be a childless man’s widow and