levirate marriage

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A marriage in which a widow marries her late husband's brother in order to maintain the family community.

Word forms

levirate marriage levirate marriages

Etymology

From levirate + marriage, from Late Latin lēvir (“husband's brother”).

Related words

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.