Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/349

 3i6

was something in the Jewish idea of the name of the dead upon his inheritance was, family estate as distinguished from the rights in later times, limited, and only the actual of its possessor, akin to the modern notion brother of the dead man was obliged to of the relation of a corporation to its mem marry the widow. Contemporaneously with bers. The family estate was an entity sep this change, there went on a change in the arate and apart from the line of individuals custom of drawing off the shoe as evidence who succeeded each other in its possession. of title and ownership. As stated in this Like the corporation, the family estate did record, "This was the custom in former times not die, and to prevent the possibility of the in Israel concerning redeeming and con extinction of the family, the legal fiction was cerning changing, to confirm all things;" called into requisition, as in this case, where but in later times, the custom of drawing off by the son of the widow of the last occupant the shoe was limited exclusively to the one of the estate was looked upon as though he case mentioned in the twenty-fifth chapter were of the blood of the last occupant; thus of Deuteronomy; namely, where the brother the owner of the land, for the time being, of the dead man refuses to marry the widow, was legally merely the representative of the she plucks off his shoe in the presence of the estate which would continue after his death. elders, spits out before him and says, "Thus We might, to carry still further the shall be done to the man who will not build analogy between the Jewish notion of the up his brother's house; and his name was estate and the modern corporation, consider known in Israel as the house of him whose the owner of the estate like the president of shoe was plucked off." Thus what was the corporation—-its representative clothed originally a general symbol of title, in the with certain powers over it, but unable prac course of time was modified, and eventually tically to do anything whereby the estate lost its significance as such altogether, and became a symbol of contempt; and that would be minimized or lost to the family. Boaz went on addressing the elders as fol which was originally a general custom used lows: "Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the in all cases, came in the course of time to be wife of Mahlon, I have purchased to be my limited to a single case in which the actors wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon changed places. It was no longer he who his inheritance, that the name of the dead transferred the title that plucked off his shoe be not cut off from among his brethren and and gave it to his neighbor, but it was the from the gate of his place. Ye are witnesses rejected woman who in token of her con this day; and all the people that were in the tempt for the man who refused to marry her. gate and the elders said. We are witnesses.'" plucked off his shoe. I do not know of any Now, this was a lawful marriage, and re other cases in the Bible in which this custom quired no further ceremony. The wife went of drawing off the shoe is mentioned. In with the estate, and indeed, in a measure, the case of Boaz and Ruth we find it in its transmitted the estate because her son would ancient primitive form, and in the other case inherit it : her son would represent her former in Deuteronomy, it has become modified husband's family, and would take his place and changed in the course of centuries, until as one of the heads of the families of the it is hardly recognizable as the same custom. town "in the gate of his place:" in other It is an interesting illustration of the manner words, by virtue of his headship of the family in which customs are changed uncon he would be one of the elders of the town, sciously in the course of long periods of and sit in the gate as an administrator and time; it is only when we compare the two extremes side by side that the remarkable a judge. The right and the duty of the nearest kins changes that have taken place are noticed. man to marry the widow and raise up the