Traditional Jewish inheritance law is weird, because a woman can inherit property as a daughter, but not as a wife. So if a married man dies, his sons get the property. If no sons, the daughters get it. If no kids at all, the man's father gets it; if the father's dead, the deceased's brothers get it; if they're dead, then their heirs.
So, yeah, levirate marriage in Judaism insures that a childless widow will have a child to inherit her husband's estate. The sin of Onan was that he was willing to fuck his brother's widow, but pulled out to keep from fathering a child on her, thus keeping himself in line to inherit his brother's estate. (Indirectly, because his father was still alive, but when his father died he'd have inherited either half or two-thirds of that estate.)
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Date: 2009-03-19 06:05 am (UTC)Traditional Jewish inheritance law is weird, because a woman can inherit property as a daughter, but not as a wife. So if a married man dies, his sons get the property. If no sons, the daughters get it. If no kids at all, the man's father gets it; if the father's dead, the deceased's brothers get it; if they're dead, then their heirs.
So, yeah, levirate marriage in Judaism insures that a childless widow will have a child to inherit her husband's estate. The sin of Onan was that he was willing to fuck his brother's widow, but pulled out to keep from fathering a child on her, thus keeping himself in line to inherit his brother's estate. (Indirectly, because his father was still alive, but when his father died he'd have inherited either half or two-thirds of that estate.)