III.—The Levirate.
The levirate is the name given to the obligation imposed by custom or law on the brother of the deceased husband to marry his sister-in-law when she became a widow. This custom of the levirate, which for a long time has been thought peculiar to the Hebrews, is very widely spread, and is found among races most widely differing from each other. There is surely good reason for it in savage or barbarous societies where for a woman abandonment would mean death.
I will enumerate some of the peoples who practise the levirate, beginning as usual with the inferior races.
We meet the levirate first in Melanesia, at New Caledonia, where the brother-in-law, whether he be already married or not, must marry his brother's widow immediately.
We also find the levirate among the Redskins, particularly the Chippeways; and at Nicaragua, where the widow belongs either to the brother or nearest relative of her deceased husband.[1]
With the Ostiaks, the next brother of the husband is obliged to marry his widow or widows; for the Ostiaks, like the Redskins, often take for wives a whole set of sisters.[2] It is the same with the Kirghis, and in general with the nomad Mongols.[3] The Afghans also make it a duty of the brother-in-law to marry his sister-in-law, on her becoming a widow.[4]
The Code of Manu imposes the levirate even on the brother of a betrothed man who dies: "When the husband of a young girl happens to die after the betrothal, let the brother of the husband take her for wife."[5] The object of this legal precept in India is to give a posterity to the deceased brother; for the following verse seems to limit the duration of the cohabitation with the widowed
