widow was a charge on her children, or, if she had none, on her own family.[1] The abandoned widow had no other resource than her share in the offerings and public charity.[2] The injunction is indeed given not to afflict her;[3] it would certainly have been better to grant her some rights.
In Judæa, the wife was bought by her husband; it is therefore probable that, in primitive times, she formed a part of his wealth, as is the case now among the Mussulman Afghans and among the Kabyles.
In Afghanistan, the widow, being a mortgaged property, cannot re-marry until the price of purchase paid for her by her deceased husband has been reimbursed to the parents of that husband.[4] In a great number of Kabyle tribes, the widow remains "hung" to her dead husband—that is to say, she is counted part of the heritage.[5] Generally she returns to her family, and her father or her relatives sell her a second time.[6] If, however, she has children, especially male children, she cannot be forced to marry again; but then the son redeems her, or she deducts from the property of her children the sum necessary to redeem herself from paternal power.[7] In the tribe of Aït Flik, heirs have, by pre-emption, the privilege of marrying the widow, and that without having to pay the thâmanth.[8] It is understood that while awaiting the day when she is to be disposed of again, the Kabyle widow is bound to the strictest chastity. If she becomes with child, she is punished by stoning.[9]
Like the Bible, and nearly all other legislations, the Koran only allows the marriage of a widow after a certain term of delay. In the Koran, this term is four months and ten days;[10] and if the woman is with child, the delay must extend till after her delivery. But there are some pregnancies that are either imaginary or fictitious, and which come to nothing, yet in Arab countries successions are suspended on account of them. If, at the moment of her husband's death, a woman thinks herself with child, she
