Notes[ 8 ]a stor y in B. Ber. 56 a suggests that a stepmother might not be concerned with the
welfare of her husband’s children by a previous wife.
44. B. Meg. 13 a; B. San. 19 b.
45. My discussion of levirate in Sasanian Babylonia is taken from my article
“The Babylonian Talmud’s Treatment of Levirate Marriage,” 63 – 65. For a more
detailed comparison of rabbinic and Sasanian law on marriage, including in-
heritance and succession, see Elman, “Marriage and Marital Property,” – 6.
46. Gafni, “The Institution of Marriage in Rabbinic Times,” 3; and Ze’ev Fa lk,
Jewish Matrimonial Law in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1966 ), – 1. No one argues that polygyny was widespread among Babylonian
Jews; as Gafni notes, it was probably restricted to the well-to-do because of the
financial burden of supporting multiple wives and their children.
4. Nowhere in the Bavli is an objection to polyg yny offered to justif y hal-
itza over levirate marriage. Such objections — by levirs, levirate widows, and the
wives of levirs — are recorded in a response found in the Cairo Genizah. See Mor-
dechai Friedman, Ribui Nasim BeYisrael (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik and Tel Aviv
Un iver sit y, 1986 ), 19 – 131 , 13, 144 , 146.
48. See Elman, “Marriage and Marital Property,” 5 , on the religious prob-
lems of dying without a son.
49. See, e.g., William W. Malandra, An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion:
Readings from the Avesta and the Achaemenid Inscriptions (Minneapolis: Univer-
sity of Minnesota, 1983 ), 1 1, 1 6.
5. George William Carter, Zoroastrianism and Judaism (Boston: R. G. Badger,
1918 ), 85 ; Miles Menander Dawson, The Ethical Religion of Zoroaster (New York:
Macmillan, 1969 ), 148 – 149. Many texts in the Jewish tradition also suggest that
monogamy is the norm or the ideal.
51. Ehsan Yarshater, ed., Encyclopaedia Iranica (London and Boston: Routledge
and Keegan Paul, 198 – 4), vol. 4 , fasc. 5 – 8 , 64 . W h i le t h is a r t icle assu mes t hat
widows were “obligated” to enter into a levirate union, Elman notes that there
was significant financial incentive for a widow to provide a post humous son for
her deceased husband.
5. Yarshater, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 4 , fasc. 5 – 8 , 648.
53. M. Yev. 4 :; Yarshater, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 4 , fasc. 5 – 8 , 648.
54. A daughter could inherit her father’s estate, but a son needed to preserve
a man’s name and lineage.
55. Yarshater, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 4 , fasc. 5 – 8 , 64 . A man who entered
into a levirate union was providing an heir for another man and would presum-
ably obtain an heir for himself through a different type of marriage.
56. Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984 ), 13.
5. Yarshater, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. , fasc. 4 – 6 , 445.
58. Gen. 3: 1.
59. Num. : 4.
6. B. Yev. 6b.
61. At B. Hag. 14 b – 15 a, the Bavli acknowledges the possibility of conception
through a woman’s contact with sperm-laden sheets. It is not clear whether a
man could be declared the father of a child conceived in such a way; the primary
concern of the Bavli is the status of a woman who is pregnant yet claims to be
a virgin. For a discussion of paternity in a contemporary halakhic context, see
Susan Martha Kahn, Reproducing Jews (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,
), ch. 3.