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In Hebrew tradition, the levirate marriage is an institution whereby a man is obliged to marry his brother's childless widow in order to beget a son who will
carry the dead father's name. The author speculates that this institution was determined by a number of repressed archaic ideas. With illustrations mainly from the stories of Judah and Tamar, Boaz and Ruth—the ancestors of Jesus Christ—the author formulates the following determinants for the tradition. The begettor of the child is acting in behalf of a father figure who is ghost or God. Such a son can fantasy that he himself is God or demigod because of this descent. In the New Testament, a reversal takes place in which Jesus is begotten of God, and Joseph is the unimportant status father.