For the source text click/tap here: Yevamot 17
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One of the women about whom the first Mishna (2a) taught that there is no mitzva of yibum is the case of eishet ahiv she-lo hayah be-olamo – when there is a brother who was not born until after the woman became a widow. In such a case, the severe prohibition of a person marrying his brother’s wife remains in effect, and the woman does not have to wait until the newborn child is old enough to perform yibum or halitza; she can get married immediately.
This halakha is mentioned as one of 15 cases in the first Mishna in the massekhet; the first Mishna of the second perek- which begins on our daf– deals with it in some detail. The Gemara suggests that the source for this halakha is the passage that opens the rules of yibum (see Devarim 25:5), beginning with the condition “when brothers live together,” which implies that this is a law that applies only when the brothers were alive at the same time.
We explore the notion of the brothers in Debt 25:5 and the commentators to that verse then go on to look at Levirate marriage by the Ethiopian Beta Yisrael as a witness to post biblical pre rabbinic interrelations.and their refusal to perform levirate marriage.