Levirate marriage

Levirate marriage is a customary or legally prescribed union in which a widow marries her deceased husband’s brother or another male relative, often to preserve family continuity and inheritance.

Deuteronomy 25: A chapter of the Hebrew Bible that prescribes duties including a brother’s obligation to marry his deceased brother’s widow. Its levirate rule is the best-known scriptural formulation of the custom.
Inheritance: The transfer of property, rights, and obligations after a person’s death. Levirate marriage could keep a deceased man’s estate within his family line.
Yibbum: The biblical and rabbinic Jewish practice in which a childless widow marries her deceased husband’s brother. It is the formal Jewish instance of levirate marriage.
Sororate marriage: A marriage in which a widower marries his deceased wife’s sister or another female relative. It reverses the gendered direction of levirate marriage.
Judah and Tamar: A biblical narrative in which Judah’s son Onan refuses to father offspring for his deceased brother through Tamar. The story dramatizes the family duty that levirate marriage addresses.
Patrilineality: A system of descent in which membership and inheritance pass through the father’s line. The custom can preserve a patrilineal household when a man dies without an heir.
Halizah: A Jewish release ceremony that frees a widow and her brother-in-law from the obligation of yibbum. It provides a prescribed alternative when the levirate union does not take place.
Widow remarriage: Marriage entered into by a person after the death of a spouse. Levirate marriage is a specific kin-directed form of widow remarriage.
Book of Ruth: A Hebrew biblical narrative about Ruth, a Moabite widow, and her marriage to the Judean landowner Boaz. Its kinship and redemption plot is often compared with levirate marriage, though Boaz is not Ruth’s brother-in-law.
Widowhood: The social and legal condition of a person whose spouse has died. Levirate marriage is one culturally specific response to a widow’s changed status.

Linked from 2 pages