[ ]From Wife to Widow and Back AgainMishnah-Tosefta Yevamot, particularly in the increasing willingness to
employ halitza rather than levirate marriage, a desire among the rabbis
to protect women from the abuses inherent in the levirate law.^16
In my own, earlier study of levirate marriage in the Mishnah, I note
that the Mishnah finds anomalies problematic and seeks to resolve situ-
ations in which the status of a person or object is unclear.^17 It is possi-
ble that one incentive for the rabbis’ growing willingness to normalize
levirate unions, thus granting levirate widows some of the power that
other women have to accept or reject a prospective husband, may be an
outgrowth, perhaps even an unintended benefit, of the desire to make
the status of the levirate widow less irregular. Moreover, I note that the
Mishnah seems far more concerned that the levirate bond be resolved in
some way than that it result in a levirate marriage.^18 Perhaps the Mish-
nah’s embrace of halitza led to a willingness to give the levirate widow
a greater voice in determining that halitza, not levirate marriage, was
the proper response to the bond between her and her brother-in-law. If
so, the improvement in the status of the levirate widow is not, as Haupt-
man argues, an indication of the rabbis’ concern for women, but simply
a willingness to endorse alternatives to levirate marriage.
I will argue that some of the rabbis’ responses to the situation of
the levirate widow are attempts to create “acceptable” solutions to the
problems posed by the yevama’s status. What makes these solutions ac-
ceptable is that they are male controlled and rabbinically generated. As
such, they serve as a “proper” alternative to the yevama’s attempts to
avoid levirate marriage through vows and claims against her levir. The
yevama is dangerous both because her status is unclear and because she
may “act out,” and perhaps to a lesser degree because the Torah makes
her the active party in halitza. The rabbis offer “safe” methods to resolve
the status of the yevama. In doing so, they expand her options, while
channeling her power into acceptable avenues or expropriating it for
themselves.
The Bible looks at the widow of a childless man in the context of fam-
ily relationships. It presents her interacting with her husband’s brother,
father, and mother, and generally suggests her interest in remaining
part of her late husband’s family. In contrast, rabbinic literature focuses
only on the connection between the yevama and her brother(s)-in-law,
and acknowledges that she might be reluctant to become her brother-in-