Legal separation, on the other hand,
leaves the marriage legally intact despite going through many of the same procedures such as asset division and custody.
The Sadducees who came to him in the temple tried to refute the belief by an argument based on the law of levirate
marriage (Deut 25:5 - 6), by which, if a man died and
left no son, his wife was taken by his brother, and their first son was
legally reckoned as the son of the deceased.