For the source text click/tap here: Yevamot 119
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Before a woman a whose husband and Tzarah went overseas, and who is told that her husband died, she needs to ascertain - that her Tzarah did not have a baby and that she is not pregnant.
She is not similarly obligated to desist from marrying if her mother-in-law too, went overseas, on the basis of the possibility that she had a baby, and that she (the daughter-in-law) is now obligated to perform Yibum - because even if she did have a baby, her daughter-in-law would be permitted to marry, since the child may have died, and even if it survived, it may have been a girl.
If however, her mother-in-law left pregnant, the term used is יָצְתָה מְלֵיאָה when, according to Rebbi Eliezer, she must wait until she discovers whether she is now Chayav Yibum or not.
According to Rebbi Yehoshua - it makes no difference. She is permitted to marry anyway.
We explore the dimensions of “showing” that have such legal ramifications and the cultural valences of pregnancy in the medieval period as well a fascinating personal archetypal odyssey…