1,883. If a Man Claims to Have a Brother

Yibum v’Chalitzah 3:2

If a man says, “This is my brother” or that he has brothers, he is not taken at his word and his wife does not become prohibited by a levirate bond. Rather, we assume that his intention was to render his wife prohibited to remarry after his death.

Yibum v’Chalitzah 3:3

If there’s a presumption that a man has brothers and he says at the time of his death that he doesn’t, he is not taken at his word; the same is true if he says that a man presumed to be his brother actually isn’t. If there are no existing presumptions that he has brothers but there’s a rumor that there are witnesses overseas who will testify that he has brothers, then the widow must take this into consideration and wait for these witnesses to come. This is so even if the man said at the time of his death that he had no brothers.