[Urbane Guerrilla]

All of which documents in glorious detail that you persist in missing my point, and also miss that I merely observed this was how they tried to do it. I'd amplify that it seems they had little to nothing else, those being unsophisticated times economically, which from the talking they did about it in the Bible, suggests they weren't sure they were getting the job properly done in 100% of the circumstances. Sounds like everybody who had something to say about it could name a starveling widow or three.

It's the sort of thing that would have been come up with in a social order where your family and your blood relatives were the chiefest, if not the only, thing you kept allegiance with -- tribal bonds and links being a sort of extension of the family bond.

Note also that the story of Onan documents, insofar as this is documented at all, and aside from the superstitious coda of "...wherefore the Lord slew him also," the point at which the Hebrews abandoned this law in apparent hope of finding something better, that didn't rely so heavily on some other available relative being interested enough in, and happy enough with, the widow, to fix her up with descendants with the filial obligations to keep the ol' gal in comfort. Read it and see if this interpretation doesn't hold up.

I also draw a distinction between "social security" and individual "retirement plan," positing the latter and not the former, the one being governmental entitlements, the other private.