Sororate marriage is a type of marriage in which a husband engages in marriage or sexual relations with the sister of his wife, usually after the death of his wife or if his wife has proven infertile. The fraternal equivalent is
levirate marriage
Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is obliged to marry his brother's widow. Levirate marriage has been practiced by societies with a strong clan structure in which exogamous marriage (i.e. marriage o ...
.
From an
anthropological
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, wh ...
standpoint, this
type of marriage strengthens the ties between both groups (the wife's family or clan and the husband's) and preserves the contract between the two to provide children and continue the alliance.
The
Inuit
Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...
(formerly known as
Eskimo
''Eskimo'' () is a controversial Endonym and exonym, exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit (including the Alaska Native IƱupiat, the Canadian Inuit, and the Greenlandic Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Sibe ...
s) of northern
Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
and
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
follow or followed this custom. It is followed by the Chiricahua group of the Western Apache, who are Athabaskan speaking, as is levirate marriage.
Sororate marriage is practiced by the
Sioux
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin ( ; Dakota/ Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translati ...
(Lakota) tribes, and some
Western Mono tribes in California, such as the ''Wuksachi'' or ''Waksachi''.
Sororate marriage is practiced by the
Swazi people
The Swati or Swazi ( Swati: ''Emaswati'', singular ''Liswati'') are a Bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa, inhabiting Eswatini, a sovereign kingdom in Southern Africa, and South Africa's Mpumalanga province. EmaSwati are part of the ...
and for the same reasons as stated. This type of marriage is made in
Bhutan
Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...
. The former King
Jigme Singye Wangchuck
Jigme Singye Wangchuck (, ; born 11 November 1955) is the fourth Druk Gyalpo ( Dragon King) of Bhutan, reigning from 1972 to 2006. He is the father of the present King of Bhutan Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck. He is the only son of five ch ...
(the current king's father) is married to four wives, all of whom are sisters. There is evidence that sororate marriage existed in ancient China.
Judaism
Levirate marriage was encouraged among ancient
Jewish culture
Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not simply a faith-based religion, but an orthopraxy and Ethnoreligious group, ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, ...
s; the chief example of sororate marriage found in the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
. '' Rachel
Rachel () was a Bible, Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph (Genesis), Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban (Bible), Laban. Her older siste ...
and
Leah
Leah () appears in the Hebrew Bible as one of the two wives of the Biblical patriarch Jacob. Leah was Jacob's first wife, and the older sister of his second (and favored) wife Rachel. She is the mother of Jacob's first son Reuben. She has thr ...
to one husband
Jacob
Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...
, the forebear of the
Twelve Tribes of Israel
The Twelve Tribes of Israel ( , ) are described in the Hebrew Bible as being the descendants of Jacob, a Patriarchs (Bible), Hebrew patriarch who was a son of Isaac and thereby a grandson of Abraham. Jacob, later known as Israel (name), Israel, ...
. Such a marriage as Jacob's during the lifetime of the first wife was subsequently prohibited by the
Law of Moses
The Law of Moses ( ), also called the Mosaic Law, is the law said to have been revealed to Moses by God. The term primarily refers to the Torah or the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.
Terminology
The Law of Moses or Torah of Moses (Heb ...
(Leviticus 18:18). However, upon the death of his wife, a man was considered free to marry his late wife's sister and, if the deceased left issue (children), it was considered especially meritorious for the widower to do so.
Christianity
Christian views on sororate marriage have varied widely over time and between denominations. In the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
, the
current canon law of the
Latin Church
The Latin Church () is the largest autonomous () particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical ...
permits a widower to marry the sister of his deceased wife. Together with
consanguineous relatives, some
Lutherans
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Reformation in 15 ...
have prohibited marriage within close degrees of
affinity
Affinity may refer to:
Commerce, finance and law
* Affinity (law), kinship by marriage
* Affinity analysis, a market research and business management technique
* Affinity Credit Union, a Saskatchewan-based credit union
* Affinity Equity Pa ...
, such as siblings-in-law, who are considered to fall within the
prohibited degrees of kinship. The 1646
Westminster Confession
The Westminster Confession of Faith, or simply the Westminster Confession, is a Reformed confession of faith. Drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly as part of the Westminster Standards to be a confession of the Church of England, it beca ...
prohibited marriages between siblings-in-law, stating that, "The man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband's kindred nearer in blood than of her own." However, the clause forbidding the marriage of a deceased wife's sister or a deceased husband's brother was removed in 1887 from the revision of the Westminster Confession created by the
Presbyterian Church in the United States. John Wesley, founder of
Methodism
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
, believed the Levitical law permitted marriage with a deceased wife's sister.
Kurds
Sororate is a custom which is practiced among
the Kurds like
Levirate marriage
Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is obliged to marry his brother's widow. Levirate marriage has been practiced by societies with a strong clan structure in which exogamous marriage (i.e. marriage o ...
: When a man loses his wife before she bears a child or she dies leaving young children, her lineage provides another wife to the man, usually a younger sister with a lowered bride-price. Both
Levirate
Levirate marriage is a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is obliged to marry his brother's widow. Levirate marriage has been practiced by societies with a strong clan structure in which exogamous marriage (i.e. marriage ou ...
and Sororate are practiced to guarantee the well-being of children and ensure that any inheritance of land will stay within the family.
See also
*
Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907
References
{{Types of marriages, state=autocollapse
Remarriage
Traditions involving siblings