During the post-exilian period the abuse of divorce continued unabated (Josephus, Life, 76) ; and under the Asmonaian dynasty the right was assumed by the wife as agamst her husband, an innovation which is attribu- ted to Salome by Josephus (Ant. xv, 7, 10), but which appears to have been prevalent in the apostolic age, if we may judge from passages where the language im- plies that the act emanated from the wife (Mark x, 12 : 1 Cor. vii, 11), as well as from some of the comments of the early writers on 1 Tim. v, 9. Our Lord and his apostles re-established the integrity and sanctity of the marriage-bond by the following measures : (1) by the confirmation of the original charter of marriage as the basis on which all regulations are to be framed (Matt. xix, 4, 5) ; (2) by the restriction of divorce to the case of fornication, and the prohibition of remarriage in all persons divorced on improper grounds (Matt, v, 32 ; xix, 9; Eom. vii, 3; 1 Cor. vii, 10, 11); and (3) by the en- forcement of moral purity generally (Heb. xiii, 4, etc.), and especially by the formal condemnation of fornica- tion, which appears to have been classed among acts morally indifferent (nC'ta^opo) by a certain party in the Church (Acts xv, 20).
yill. Levirate Law. — 1. The only power which a woman had over the man during the pre-]\Iosaic period, in matrimonial matters, was when her husband died without issue. The widow could then claim his next brother to marry her; if the second also died without progeny, she could ask the third, and so on. The ob- ject of this Levirate marriage, as it is called, from the Latin, /eciV, brother-iu-law (Hebrew, CS''; Greek, tTri- ■y«/</3p£ai), is " to raise up seed to the dejiarted brother," which should preserve his name upon his inheritance, and prevent it from being erased from among his breth- ren, and from the gate of his town (Gen. xxxviii, 8 ; Deut. xxv, C ; Ruth iv, 10) ; since the Hebrews regard- ed childlessness as a great evil (Gen. xvi, 4; xix, 31), and entire excision as a most dire calamity and awful punishment from God (Deut. ix, 14; Psa. ix, 7; cix, 15). To remove this reproach from the departed, it was re- garded as the sacred duty of the eldest surviving broth- er to marry the widow, and the first-born son resulting from such an alliance was to all intents and purposes
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considered as the representative and heir of the deceased. Thus we are told that when Er, Judah's eldest son, who was married to Tamar, died without issue, the second son was called upon to marry his deceased brother's widow, and that when he again died, leaving no chil- dren, Tamar, the widow, had still a claim upon the only surviving son, for whom she had to wait, as he was not as yet marriageable (Gen. xxxviii, G-12, 14, 26). Ulti- mately Judah himself had to marry his daughter-ia- law, for she inveigled him into it as a punishment for neglecting to give her his third son (Gen. xxxviii, 26- 30) ; and Pharez, the issue of this Levirate marriage, not only became the founder of a numerous and illus- trious family, but was the direct line from which the royal family of David descended, and the channel through which the Messiah was born (Gen. xxxviii, 29, with Matt, i, 3). This Levirate marriage was not peculiar to the Hebrews. It also obtained among the Moabites (Ruth i, 11-13), Persians (Kleuker, Zendaves- ia, iii, 226), Indians (A siatic Researches, iii, 35), and still exists in Arabia (Burckhardt, Azotes, i, 112; Niebuhr, Fo^«(/e, p. 61), among the tribes of the Caucasus (Hant- hausen, T/'anscaucasiajX). 403), and other nations (comp. Le3-ser, in Herzog, Real-Encyklop. viii, 358, s. v. Levi- ratsehe).
2. This law, which, as wc have seen, existed from time immemorial both among the patriarchs and other nations of antiquity, was at length formally enacted as part of the Biblical gamology. In adopting this law, however, as in the case of other primitive practices in- corporated in the Mosaic code, the sacred legislator both prescribes for it definite limits, and most humanely de- prives it of tlie irksome and odious features which it possessed in ancient times. This is evident from the enactment itself, which is as follows : " If brothers dwell together, and one of them die and have no child, the wife of the deceased shall not marry out of the family a stranger; her husband's brother shall go iu unto her, and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. Her first-born shall then succeed in the name of the deceased brother, so that his name be not blotted out of Israel" (Deut. xxv, 5, 6). Accord- ingly— i. This law is restricted to brothers who dwell to- gether, i. e. in contiguous properties, as the rabbinical law explains it according to the meaning of the plirase T^in^ T-IL^ in Gen. xiii, 6; xxxvi, 7, and elsewhere. If the brothers lived far away, or if the deceased had no brothers at all, it was an understood thing that it devolved upon the nearest of kin to marry the widow, or care for her if she was too old, when, of course, it passed over from the domain of Leviration into that of Goel or redeemer (Ruth ii, 20; iii, 9; iv, 15, 16). ii. To cases where no issue whatever is left, as 'fl is here used in its general sense of offsjn-ing and not specifically for son. This is not only confirmed by the Sept. {(nrip/^a), Matthew (fxr) ix^JV (nripfia, xxii, 5), Mark (xii, 19), Luke (aTSKi'oc, xx, 28), Josephus (Ant. iv, 8, 23), and the Talmud {Jehamoth, 22 b), but is evident from the law of inheritance (Numb, xxvii, 8-11), in which it is declared that if a man dies without leaving a son, his daughter is to inherit the property. For if his widow could claim the surviving brother to marry her in order to raise up a son to the deceased, the daughter who le- gally came to the inheritance would either have to lose her possessions, or the son born of the Levirate mar- riage would have to be without patrimony.