Author: Nathaniel Teminijesu Okunade & Martha Itunu Omoniyi
Date: 20/02/2026
This study undertakes a critical re-examination of levirate and sororate marriage within African traditional societies by placing them in rigorous hermeneutical dialogue with Old Testament family ethics. Both cultural worlds construe marriage as a corporate institution oriented toward lineage preservation, inheritance stability, and communal cohesion; however, prevailing Western exegetical traditions frequently misconstrue these practices through Eurocentric interpretive grids that obscure their ethical and theological sophistication. Employing a contextual, postcolonial hermeneutical methodology, this research systematically analyses key Old Testament texts (Deut 25:5–10; Gen 38; Ruth 4) alongside anthropological and theological descriptions of African kinship systems to delineate substantive convergences, critical divergences, and areas of mutual illumination. The study argues that African successor-marriage systems embody moral commitments parallel to those found in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in the protection of widows, the perpetuation of lineage, and the safeguarding of familial identity. Furthermore, it demonstrates that a dialogical interpretive model, where African cultural realities interrogate and enrich biblical texts, disrupts colonial epistemologies and reinstates African interpretive agency. The article concludes by engaging contemporary ethical questions surrounding gender justice, pastoral praxis, and evolving socio-legal contexts, proposing a nuanced theological framework that preserves communal values while affirming human dignity.
Keywords: Levirate Marriage, Sororate Marriage, African Hermeneutics, Old Testament Ethics.
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