LEVIARTO. - The duty to marry one's brother's widow when he dies without children. This custom is common among many primitive peoples and is based on the idea that two brothers were considered as a single being. Among the Hebrews, the brother of the deceased who is bound by the duty of levirate marriage is called *jābhān*. The custom is already documented in the patriarchal period (Gen. 38:8 sq.). The first son born from the marriage of the widow with her brother-in-law bears the name of the woman's first husband, because the purpose of levirate marriage was precisely to ensure the deceased man's lineage after he had reached adulthood through marriage. Thus, the inheritance of the deceased was secured for his direct descendants. If there is no second brother, the obligation of levirate marriage passes to the third and subsequent brothers; the episode in the Book of Ruth (4:3 sq.) shows that, if not the obligation, at least the right and the propriety of such a custom existed even among more distant relatives.
The law of levirate marriage appears in Deuteronomy, where the manner in which the brother-in-law who evades the levirate is to be treated is described (Deut. 25:5-10): in the presence of the elders, the widow removes his shoe and spits in his face, saying, “Thus shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.” The brother-in-law is then called *halūs han-nā' al*, “he who has been deprived of the shoe” (removing the shoe signifies renouncing a right).
Levirate marriage was still practiced in the time of Jesus (Mt. 22:23-27; Mk. 12:18-23; Lk. 20:27-32). In the Mishnah, the treatise *Yebamoth* deals with levirate marriage. Over time, the rabbis themselves, due to changing circumstances, forbade marrying a brother's widow, though they maintained the obligation of the ceremony described in the Book of Ruth.