In this study, Weisberg uses levirate marriage (an institution that involves the union of a man and the widow of his childless brother) as described in biblical law and explicated in rabbinic Judaism as a lens to examine the status of women and attitudes toward marriage, sexuality, and reproduction in early Jewish society. While marriage generally marks the beginning of a new family unit, levirate comes into play when a family's life is cut short. As such, it offers an opportunity to study the family at a moment of breakdown and restructuring.

With her discussion rooted in rabbinic sources and commentary, Weisberg explores kinship structure and descent, the relationship between a family unit created through levirate marriage and the extended family, and the roles of individuals within the family. She also considers the position of women, asking whether it is through marriage or the bearing of children that a woman becomes part of her husband's family, and to what degree a married woman remains part of her natal family. She argues that rabbinic responses to levirate suggest that a family is an evolving entity, one that can preserve itself through realignment and redefinition.

DVORA E. WEISBERG is Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature, Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles.

"Weisberg explores the meaning and purpose of marriage and family within classical Judaism, revealed in the rabbinic treatment of the biblical law of levirate marriage. Her keen reading of rabbinic texts is supported by her broad knowledge of the family in other antique cultures as well as by her study of current sociological and anthropological approaches to marriage and the family. The result is an essential resource not only for students of the Talmudic literature and the history of Judaism but for all scholars concerned with gender roles, marriage, and the family."
—Alan J. Avery-Peck, Kraft-Hiatt Professor of Judaic Studies, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts

"This is a very interesting study of an understudied set of texts and problems, a successful combination of anthropology and classical rabbinics. Weisberg shows how a law of the book of Deuteronomy received new nuances and meanings in Rabbinic literature. The book is learned but accessible; anyone interested in the history of Jewish marriage and gender relations, in the rabbinic constructions of sex and marriage, will enjoy this book."
—Shaye J. D. Cohen, Littauer Professor of Jewish Studies, Harvard University