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Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which a woman marries one of her husband's brothers after her husband's death, if there were no children, in order to continue the line of the dead husband. The term is a derivative of the Latin word levir, meaning "husband's brother".

Levirate marriage has been practiced by societies with a strong clan structure in which exogamous marriage, i.e. that outside the clan, was forbidden. It is or was known in societies including the Punjabis, Jats, Israelites, Huns (Chinese "Xiongnu", "Hsiong-nu", etc.), Mongols, and Tibetans.

Main article: Yibbum

In Judaism, levirate marriage, known as yibbum, is a marital union mandated by the Torah in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, obliging a brother to marry the widow of his childless deceased brother. There is a provision known as chalitza by which one or both of the parties may choose to become free of this duty. According to some opinions in Jewish law, yibbum is strongly discouraged, and chalitza is preferred, although Scripture itself prescribes a curse on anyone who disobeys the practice Deuteronomy 25:9-10. Examples of Levirate marriage include the marriages of Ruth Ruth 3and Onan the son of Judah Genesis 38:6-10 (who was also cursed to death for attempting to avoid conception during the process).

Levirate marriages were widespread among Central Asian nomads. Chinese historian Sima Qian (145-87 BCE) described the practices of the Huns in his magnum opus, Records of the Grand Historian. He attested that after a man's death, one of his relatives, usually an older or younger brother, marries his widow.

The levirate custom survived in the society of Northeastern Caucasus Huns until the 7th century CE. Armenian historian Movses Kalankatuatsi states that the Savirs, one of Hunnish tribes in the area, were usually monogamous, but sometimes a married man would take his brother's widow as a polygynous wife. Ludmila Gmyrya, a Dagestani historian, asserts that the levirate survived there into "ethnographic modernity" (from the context, probably 1950s).

Kalankatuatsi describes the form of levirate marriage practised by the Huns. As women had a high social status, the widow had a choice whether to remarry or not. Her new husband might be a brother or a son (by another woman) of her first husband, so she could end up marrying her brother-in-law or stepson; the difference in age did not matter. ^[1]

Soviet historian Khazanov gives economic reasons for the longevity of the levirate over two millennia of nomadic history: inheritance of a wife as a part of the deceased’s property and the necessity to support and educate children to continue the line of the deceased.

The levirate custom was revived under shaky economic conditions in the deceased’s family. Khazanov, citing [Abramzon, 1968, p. 289 - 290], mentions that during World War II the levirate was resurrected in Central Asia. In these circumstances, adult sons and brothers of the deceased man held themselves responsible to provide for his dependents. One of them would marry the widow and adopt her children, if there were any. ^[2]

Main article: widow inheritance

This type of marriage has also been practiced by many central and southern African peoples and is, to a certain degree, still in practice. In countries such as South Africa, the obligation for a woman to enter into a levirate marriage is on the decline due to increasing awareness of women's rights.

The marriage of a widow to her late husband's brother is the major plot point in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.

• Sororate marriage, the practice of marrying one's wife's (or widow's) sister
• Fraternal polyandry, a marriage of two or more brothers and one woman
• Widow inheritance, a modern form of levirate marriage
• Genealogy of Jesus, in which Levirate marriage is offered to expain discrepancies