806 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



brother Er, and is in consequence slain, the widow, Taniar, has a 

 recognized claim upon Shelah, the brother next in age. See also 

 Ruth, i, where, Naomi's two sons having died, she says to her 

 daughters-in-law, " Are there yet any more sons in my womb that 

 may be your husbands ? " and " would ye tarry for them till they 

 were grown ? " There being no brothers to take these widows, 

 one of them, Ruth, makes overtures to Boaz, a near kinsman of 

 her deceased husband ; and this man then takes her to wife, not, 

 however, as levir, but as goel, or redeemer of the heritage of the 

 dead. The goel was not bound by law to marry the widow as a 

 condition ,of the redemption, but it appears from Ruth, iv, 10 

 and 17, that when he did so the first child born of the new 

 union was reckoned the offspring of the deceased. With the 

 Makololo, Zulus, and others, the obligation of the levirate holds 

 good whether the deceased had children or not ; with the Jews 

 the custom had become modified and the obligation only held 

 good when the deceased brother was childless. This was also 

 the case with the Hindoos at the time when the Institutes of 

 Menu were compiled, and is the case at the present day with the 

 Shushwap Indians of British Columbia, and other peoples.* 

 Among the Jews, the son born of the new union, the fictitious 

 child of the deceased brother, became the heir to the property, to 

 the exclusion of his real father, the levir. By the Institutes of 

 Menu the property was divided between the fictitious child of the 

 deceased and his real father. 



We have said that it is the practice in polyandrous households 

 for the brother next in age to succeed, at the decease of the eldest 

 brother, to the position of the head of the family, to the family 

 property, and to the wife ; and from this practice doubtless arises 

 the wide-spread custom of a brother inheriting a deceased brother's 

 wives. In Ladak we see that the younger brothers are not obliged 

 to be joint husbands of the wife of their eldest brother it is op- 

 tional for them to be so or not but the property, authority, and 

 wife of the eldest brother devolve at his decease upon the brother 

 next in age, whether he has agreed to the polyandrous union or 

 not. Through the custom derived from polyandry he has a 

 right of succession to his eldest brother's property and widow, and 

 he can not take one without the other. In this case we see the 

 original custom in a state of decay. In earlier times the younger 

 brother would necessarily be a husband of the wife, and as such 

 would, at the death of the elder brother, succeed to the position of 

 head of the family that is, the wife and the property would be 

 vested in him. At the present day it is optional for the younger 

 brother to be an associated husband, but, even if he is not one, he still 



* Northwest Passage by Land, p. 319. 



