# Sin of Onan **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 3, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sin-of-onan/302263 "2005-05-03T19:41:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sin-of-onan/302263/1 "2005-05-03T19:41:51Z")
> [@](#): > > While the Onan story was a factor, the driving force behind Christianity’s evolving attitude toward sex was the New Testament, coupled with the pessimistic certainty that the end of the world was imminent. I think you meant “optimistic”. * * * Link to Staff Report: [What exactly was the sin of Onan?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/monanism.html)– CKDH ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sin-of-onan/302263/2 "2005-05-03T20:48:13Z")
Another point: In the Staff Report, you say > [@](#): > > Deuteronomy 25:5-10 describes a way for the brother to decline this responsibility, but presumably at the time of the story of Onan, that legal mechanism wasn’t known. But looking up [Deuteronomy 25:5-10](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?search=deuteronomy%2025:5-10&version1=31), we find > [@](#): > > ``` > [sup]5[/sup] If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. [sup]6[/sup] The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. > > [sup]7[/sup] However, if a man does not want to marry his brother's wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, "My husband's brother refuses to carry on his brother's name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me." [sup]8[/sup] Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, "I do not want to marry her," [sup]9[/sup] his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, "This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother's family line." [sup]10[/sup] That man's line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled. > > ``` So if a guy doesn’t want to fulfill his leviric obligation, he gets spat at, loses a shoe, and gets a name attached to his family for posterity to remind everyone of this fact. This does not sound to me like a legal way to avoid one’s obligation, this sounds to me like a punishment for not fulfilling the (still mandated) obligation. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2005, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sin-of-onan/302263/3 "2005-05-03T21:13:41Z")
I didn’t want to get into that in the Staff Report. The ritual is obviously a combination of both. The idea is that, yes, you can get out of the levirite marriage, but to do so involved some public embarrassment and public acknowledgement. For the tribal life of that time, property remained with the family, and preserving the family was considered critically important. So, a guy could get out of marrying his sister-in-law, but it wouldn’t be easy. OTOH, presumably, if Onan had known of this approach, he would have preferred being spat at to just dropping dead. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2005, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sin-of-onan/302263/4 "2005-05-04T01:11:12Z")
Getting it on the blue dress :eek: