[f. L. lēvir brother-in-law + -ATE1.] The custom among the Jews and some other nations, by which the brother or next of kin to a deceased man was bound under certain circumstances to marry the widow.
1725. T. Lewis, Antiq. Hebr. Republ., III. 268. The Law of Levirate.
1783. T. Wilson, Archæol. Dict., Levirate.
1855. W. H. Mill, Applic. Panth. Princ. (1861), 202. Reasoning from the spirit of the law of levirate, as concerning only succession to property.
1870. Lubbock, Orig. Civiliz., iii. (1875), 94. The next stage was … that form of polyandry in which brothers had their wives in common, afterwards came that of the levirate.
1883. Maine, Early Law & Custom, iv. 100. An institution … known commonly as the Levirate, but called by the Hindus, in its more general form, the Niyoga.
b. attrib. passing into adj.
1865. trans. Renan’s Life Jesus, xvii. 203. The Mosaic code had consecrated this patriarchal theory by a strange institution, the levirate law.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, I. 264. The law of levirate marriage might be set aside if [etc.].
Hence Leviratic, Leviratical adjs., pertaining to or in accordance with the levirate; Leviration, leviratical marriage.
1815. in J. Allen, Mod. Judaism (1816), 415, note. The design of the precept of leviration was [etc.].
1849. Alford, Grk. Test., I. 159 (Matt. xxii. 24). The firstborn son of a leviratical marriage was reckoned … as the son of the deceased brother.
