“…very specific material conditions can act in concert with more universal norms to create distinct family structures”

It is interesting to note that very specific material conditions can act in concert with more universal norms to create distinct family structures. In this case, the combination of landholding in non-easily divisible parcels with a law of succession that excludes women in most cases and divides the property almost equally among brothers and the law of levirate marriage would serve to strengthen ties between brothers, even as it potentially weakened ties between brothers and sisters or between sisters. This, of course, does not mean that brothers, even business partners, necessarily loved each other.

Michael Satlow, “What Does Love Have to Do with It? Sibling Relationships among Judean Jews in the First-Third Centuries CE”, in Ehe-Familie-Gemeinde, eds. Dorothee Dettinger and Christof Landmesser (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlangsanstalt, 2014), 115.