Notes[ 1 ]to allow levirate marriage or halitza when there was even, in theory, a slim pos-
sibility of procreation, but not when there was no possibility at all.
63. T. Yev. 6 : 9.
64. Y. Yev. 1 : 1 , b; B. Yev. 39 b.
65. Meyers, “The Family in Early Israel,” 18.
66. Pasternak, Introduction to Kinship, 59 – 61.
6. David Novak, “Jewish Marriage: Nature, Covenant and Contract,” in
Broyde, ed., Marriage, Sex, and Family in Judaism, 61 – 83.
68. There are societies in which levirate is not viewed as marriage, but even in
many of those societies polyg yny is permitted.
69. Pasternak, Introduction to Kinship, 6.
. Isaiah Gafni, “The Institution of Marriage in Rabbinic Times,” in Kraemer,
ed., The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory, 1 – 3; Satlow, Jewish Marriage in
Antiquity, 19 – 191. For a dissenting view, see Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman
Palestine, 85 – 88.
1. Gafni, “The Institution of Marriage in Rabbinic Times,” 3 – 4; Sat low, Jew-
ish Marriage in Antiquity, 191.
. See Weisberg, “Levirate Marriage and Halitza in the Mishnah,” 63 – 66 , and
“The Babylonian Talmud’s Treatment of Levirate Marriage,” 6 – 65.
3. Pasternak points out that the words “endogamy” and “exogamy” must be
understood in the context of a certain group; a group might be endogamous or
exogamous with regard to one variable but not another.
4. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 148 – 155.
5. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 156 – 158.
6. Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine, 6 – .
. B. Ber. 56 a; B. Ned. 3a.
8. M. Yev. 3 : 1 – .
9. Meyers, “The Family in Early Israel,” 36.
8. For a detailed discussion of descent, see Pasternak, Introduction to Kin-
ship, ch. 8. Different types of descent systems are described in Fox, Kinship and
Marriage, chs. 4 – 6.
81. Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1999 ), 64.
8. In fact, this specification is not explicitly stated in the Torah, but is derived
from an “extra” word. The Bavli’s question is therefore why each statement con-
tains that extraneous word.
83. The Bavli also argues the opposite position, acknowledging that we can be
certain who a person’s mother is, but that paternity cannot be certain!
84. W hile sons take precedence over daughters with regard to their father’s
estate, daughters have the legal right to inherit. A daughter’s rights as her fa-
ther’s heir give her precedence over other members of her father’s patrilineage,
his father, brothers, nephews, etc. Furthermore, a daughter’s rights are not ab-
rogated when she marries out of her father’s patrilineage, and she transmits
those rights to her children, despite those children’s membership in another
patrilineage.
85. Fox w r ites, “[E]ven i n a pat r i l i nea l s ystem, a ma n ha s mat r i l i nea l relat ives,
and it is often the case that they are very important in his life.” In fact, Fox ar-
gues, the absence of economic or inheritance rights among relatives may lessen
tensions between them and offer an indiv idual a strong support system (Kinship
and Marriage, 13 – 133 ).
86. Pasternak, Introduction to Kinship, 1 4.