A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Tamar, or Thamar
TAMAR, OR THAMAR,
Was daughter-in-law to the patriarch Judah, wife of Er and Onan. After Onan's death, Tamar lived with her father-in-law, expecting to marry his son Shelah, as had been promised her, and was the custom of the time. But the marriage not having taken place, some years after, when Judah went to a sheep-shearing feast, Tamar disguised herself as a harlot and sat in a place where Judah would pass—and this old man yielded at once to the temptation. When it was told Judah that his daughter-in-law had been guilty, he immediately condemned her to be brought forth and burned alive; never remembering his own sin. But when he found that he was the father of the child she would soon bear, his conscience was awakened, and he made that remarkable admission that "she was more just than he had been."
This history shows the gross manners of those old times, and how false are all representations of the purity of pastoral life. Tamar had twins, sons—and from one of these, Pharez, the line of Judah is descended. These events occurred about B.C. 1727.