Levirate Marriage - Background and Rationale

Background and Rationale

Levirate marriage can, at its most positive, serve as protection for the widow and her children, ensuring that they have a male provider responsible for them. Although this can only be a positive in a society where women are not allowed self-sufficiency and must rely on a man to provide, especially in societies where women are seen as under the authority, dependence, servitude, and/or possession of their husband. Thus practice of levirate marriage is strongly associated with patriarchal societies. The practice was extremely important in ancient societies (e.g., Israelite and Near East), and remains so today in parts of the world. Having children enabled the inheritance of land, which offered security and status. A levirate marriage might only occur if a man died childless, in order to continue his family line.