204 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The levirate, named from the word levir, a husband's brother, 

 is in brief the customary right and obligation combined of a 

 brother normally the eldest surviving brother to marry the 

 widow of his deceased brother. Prof. E. B. Tylor reports that 

 this law appears among one hundred and twenty peoples i. e., 

 in about one in three of the distinct peoples of the world. It was 

 almost universal among the Indians, sometimes with additional 

 duties and privileges. A widow, as a rule, could not marry any 

 one but her deceased husband's brother except on his refusing to 

 marry her, nor until after a long time of mourning, or more prop- 

 erly of ordeal, after which she could be freed from the tabu. 



In several tribes marrying an elder sister gave to the husband 

 rights over all the other sisters of the wife. Sometimes the son- 

 in-law, especially when he married the eldest daughter, became 

 entitled to all the younger sisters of his wife at his option. Other 

 men could not take them except with his formal consent. This 

 right of the son-in-law to all the unmarried younger sisters some- 

 times continued after the death of the first wife. Not unfrequent- 

 ly a man married a widow and her daughters at the same time. 



Among the Israelites it was common to have several wives of 

 equal status, who often were sisters. A widow had a right to ap- 

 peal to her brother-in-law, or some member of her husband's fam- 

 ily, to provide her with a second husband, and an evasion of the 

 duty in personam was a gross offense. Deuteronomy xxv shows 

 the degrading terms of the formality by which alone the brother- 

 in-law could be freed from the obligations of marriage and the 

 widow be allowed to marry another man. Judah admitted that 

 Tamar's conduct was perfectly correct. It was but a legitimate 

 extension of the levirate law. 



There is the clear statement in Leviticus that the Egyptians 

 and the Canaanites formed such marriages as were in accordance 

 with the totemic system, but which were made incestuous by the 

 Israelite law. The laws of incest given in Leviticus are probably 

 later than the code of Deuteronomy, in which the prohibition is 

 directed against marriage by a man with his father's wife. That 

 precept denounces the practice in Arabia by which the son inher- 

 ited his father's wife. 



In the framework of the Deuteronomic code there were three 

 incestuous prohibitions, viz., father's wife, sister, and wife's mother. 

 To these offenses Ezekiel adds marriage with a daughter-in-law. 

 According to the prophets, all those forms of qwcisi-incest were 

 practiced in Jerusalem ; and the history indicates that all at some 

 time were recognized customs. The taking in marriage of a 

 father's wife was not wholly obsolete in the time of David. 



As regards the Israelite system of descent in the female line, it 

 may be noticed that the children of Nahor by Milkah were dis- 



