Notes[ 8 ]acknowledge that a woman might prefer to avoid levirate, and even offer such a
woman some judicial support.
8. Michael Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1), xvi.
9. Gen. 38 : 9.
1. Gen. 38 ; Ruth 3.
11. It is also possible that there were Jews, particularly in Babylonia, where
plural marriage and levirate were practiced by the majority culture, who con-
doned a man’s taking responsibility for his brother’s widow. The rabbis may have
taken a relatively neutral approach to levirate, neither promoting nor condemn-
ing it under all circumstances, but reworking it to accord with their concerns
about family, incest, and inheritance.
1. Scholars dispute the dating of the Tosefta, with some arguing for an early
third century date and others for a date as late as the fifth century.
13. A review of this discussion can be found in David C. Kraemer, The Mind of
the Talmud (New York: Oxford University Press, 199 ), – 5.
14. Dvora Weisberg, “Levirate Marriage and Halitzah i n t he Mish na h,” Annual
of Rabbinic Judaism 1 ( 1998 ), 64 – 66 ; Dvora Weisberg, “The Babylonian Talmud’s
Treatment of Levirate Marriage,” Annual of Rabbinic Judaism 3 (), 61 – 65.
15. David C. Kraemer, ed., The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1989 ); Shaye J. D. Cohen, ed., The Jewish Family
in Antiquity (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993 ); Leo G. Perdue, Joseph Blenkinsopp,
John J. Collins, and Carol Meyers, Families in Ancient Israel (Louisville, Ky.:
Westminster/John Knox, 199); and Michael Broyde, ed., Marriage, Sex, and Fam-
ily in Judaism (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 5).
16. Cohen, ed., The Jewish Family in Antiquity, . Most of the essays in the vol-
ume make this point.
1. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 18 – 188.
- The Institution of Levirate (pages 1 – )
- Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 199 ), – 1.
. See Chapter . - For an extensive discussion of the uses of cross-cultural comparison to
deepen our understanding of ancient Judaism, see Eilberg-Schwartz, The Sav-
age in Judaism. Eilberg-Schwartz notes that the requirement that widows marry
“their nearest male relatives” was one of the commonalities anthropologists
noted between American Indians and the ancient Israelites (3). - See Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism, on changes in anthropolo-
gists’ approaches to “primitive” cultures. - G. Robina Quale, A History of Marriage Systems (Westport, Conn.: Green-
wood Press, 1988 ), 1. - Quale, A History of Marriage Systems, 6.
. Betty Potash, “Widows in Africa: An Introduction,” in Betty Potash, ed.,
Widows in African Societies: Choices and Constraints (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1986 ), . - Jane Guyer, “Beti Widow Inheritance and Marriage Law,” in Potash, ed.,
Widows in African Society, – 4. - Ghost ma r r iage wa s pract iced by t he Zu lu a nd t he Nuer, who a lso employed
levirate when a man left a widow. See Max Gluckman, “Kinship and Marriage
Among the Lozi of Northern Rhodesia and the Zulu of Natal,” in A. R. Radcliffe-
- Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana