[ ]Levirate from the Hebrew Bible Through the Mishnahargue that levirate marriage is a completely altruistic act on the part of
a brother. A man has little or nothing to gain and a great deal to lose
by providing his brother with a posthumous heir. The death of a child-
less man would result in larger portions of the paternal estate going
to the surviving brothers. Levirate marriage, if “successful,” results in
the original distribution of property being maintained.^12 Furthermore,
the “loss” incurred by the levir comes through a child he himself has
fathered; the levir is disinherited through his own actions! The only
incentive Deuteronomy offers the levir is couched in negative terms;
by agreeing to perform levirate marriage, he spares himself — and his
descendants — public humiliation.
Although the widow cannot force her brother-in-law to marry her,
the biblical text does not portray her as a passive party to the ritual. In
some ways, the levirate widow is an anomaly in Deuteronomy. Most of
the women in Deuteronomy are defined by their relationships to men;
they are the daughters, wives, mothers, and female slaves of the men to
whom Deuteronomy’s laws are addressed.^13 Furthermore, these women
are silent. Even the engaged girl who is raped in the countryside is only
assumed to have screamed; her cries are never heard.^14 While the levi-
rate widow of Deuteronomy is of interest because of her relationship
with the deceased and his brother, she is not described as a dependent
woma n. Her brot her-i n-law ’s ref usa l to per for m lev i rate ma r r iage a l lows
her to act: she goes to the elders and complains; she accuses and then
publicly shames her brother-in-law. Of all the women in Deuteronomy,
she a lone has a voice, even i f she employs t hat voice on beha l f of her hus-
band and/or her community. Indeed, as we shall see, biblical texts por-
tray women as strong advocates of levirate marriage and other unions
that promote the continuity of the patriarchal family.
Deuteronomy : – both mandates and provides an exemption
from levirate marriage. The casuistic law at Deuteronomy : – estab-
lishes that when “brothers dwell together” and one brother dies child-
less, the surviving brother should marry the widow in order to provide
t he decea sed w it h a n hei r. However, t he subsequent verses ack nowledge
t hat an unw illing man need not marr y his brot her’s w idow. The passage
leaves readers with questions about the circumstances that dictate le-
virate marriage and whether levirate marriage was likely to occur even
when it was mandated.