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Under the Biblical system of levirate marriage known as Yibbum, Halizah (or Chalitzah ; ) is the ceremony by which a widow and her husband's brother could avoid the duty to marry after the husband's death.
The ceremony involves the taking off of a brother-in-law's shoe by the widow of a brother who has died childless, through which ceremony he is released from the obligation of marrying her, and she becomes free to marry whomever she desires ().
Only one brother-in-law need perform the ceremony. The old custom of the levirate marriage () is thus modified in the Deuteronomic code attrib...