Notes[ ]widows to their husbands’ male relatives, who are then the legal fathers of sub-
sequent children. This type of arrangement is known as widow-inheritance and
is distinct from levirate.
16. M. Yev. 4 : 1 – .
1. M. Ket. 4 :1.
18. B. Yev. 4a.
19. M. Qid. 1 :; B. Qid. 9a.
. M. Ket. 4 : 11.
1. M. BB 8 :.
. Potash, ed., Widows in African Societies, 44.
3. M. Yev. 4 : 4.
4. M. Yev. 4 :1.
5. B. Yev. 3b – 38 a.
6. It is unclear in this sugya whet her t he estate of t he decea sed wa s never d is-
tributed (perhaps because of the uncertainty as to the child’s claim) or whether
the child is now challenging the levir’s possession of the estate.
. Y. Yev. 4 : 1 ( 5 b).
8. One could certainly argue that these cases represent the Talmud’s em-
brace of gray areas and its use of extraordinary cases to test general principles.
Nonetheless, the rabbis’ imagining how the claimants would respond to each
other can be read as awareness of the potential for conflict among family mem-
bers when an inheritance is at stake. The correlation between the claims vis-
à-vis the family relationship and the claims of entitlement to the inheritance
certainly suggests a climate in which economic self-interest takes precedence
over family feeling.
9. Jack Goody, Production and Reproduction (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 19 6), 86 – 8.
3. Gen. 15 : – 3.
31. Goody, Production and Reproduction, 89.
3. Goody, Production and Reproduction, 9 – 9.
33. Rava, acknowledging the difficulty of divorcing a “bad wife” with a large
marriage settlement, recommends that a man respond by marrying a second
wife, who will “chasten” the first wife.
34. Song of Songs Rabbah 1 : 4.
35. Goody, Production and Reproduction, 9 – 95.
36. Goody, Production and Reproduction, 391.
3. Elman, “Marriage and Marital Property,” 31, 54. A son was still the pre-
ferred heir to a man’s estate, but a wife or daughter was preferred to a more dis-
tant male relative.
38. B. Taanit 3b; B. BB 1 a.
39. Goody, Production and Reproduction, 1.
4. Mireille Corbier, “Divorce and Adoption as Roman Familial Strategies,” in
Rawson, ed., Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, 6.
41. Dixon, The Roman Family, 11 . Adoption was used to secure a son and heir
for a man; the wife of the adoptive father did not become the legal mother of the
adopted son.
4. The promise to support stepchildren is treated as a stipulation made to
one’s wife upon marriage, a clause in her marriage document. T. Ket 1:; B. Git.
51 a.
43. B. MQ 3a permits a man to remarry immediately after his wife’s death if
he has small children, in order to provide the children with a caregiver. However,