LEVIRATE MARRIAGES IN JUDAISM: THE WOMEN WERE HELD CAPTIVE BY CUSTOM / YAHUDİLİKTE LEVİRAT EVLİLİK: GELENEĞİN TUTSAK ETTİĞİ KADINLAR

Marriage is the first step towards becoming a family. The expectations from marriage in societies are usually the same; reproduction to have next generations. However, next generation means only sons in some societies. That's why, it is normal for some to divorce his wife who cannot bear him a son or to re-marry another woman to get sons. In certain cultures, there is a tradition that a widowed wife of a deceased husband is to marry her brother-in-law. This type of marriage, called levirate, can be encountered in various places in the world. In similar practices in the world, what differs most is the practice of levirate in Judaism. Levirate in Judaism is regarded as a religious duty rather than being a tradition. In Judaism, for those who do not have a son when alive are expected to continue their names by having children through the marriage of the widowed wife with the brother-in-law of the deceased husband - as a solution. The most debated topic in Jewish history and most controversial topic amidst Jewish denominations, giving rise to conflicts in Israel now is levirate marriages. It is still debatable how and when this type of marriage began. The first example of such marriages in Torah is the one arranged by Jacob's son, Judah's daughter-in-law. Did the Israelites develop levirate by themselves or adopt it from a tradition common amongst Assyrians, Babylonians or Canaan communities? How has levirate ? a customary tradition in the beginning ? become a binding law (mitzvah) in time? We are trying to find answers to as such questions in this study. The roots of levirate marriage with religious, sociological, psychological, economic and philosophical aspects, its religious and traditional foundations, its structural purposes, and consequences are some of the major subjects to be dealt with in this study. The subject will be analysed within the framework of two different levirate studies mentioned in the Tanakh. First one of these is the marriage of Tamar and the second is the marriage of Rut, a very different levirate practice experienced much later than the Law of Moses.