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Widow conservation was a practice in Protestant Europe in the early modern age, when the widow of a parish vicar (or sometimes her daughter) would marry her husband's successor to the vicarage to ensure her economic support. The practice was common in Scandinavia (Änkekonservering/Enkekonservering) and Protestant parts of Germany (Konservierung von Pfarrwitwen). It is related to other forms of widow inheritance, including the levirate marriage known in the Old Testament as yibbum. At the introduction of the Protestant Reformation, priests were allowed to marry. However, as they did not own the vicarage and property attached to their profession, their wife and children were left without a home and means of support after their death. The future support of the widows and children of vicars thereby became a concern for the various churches. The most common solution was for the successor of a vicar to be required to marry the widow (or perhaps her daughter) of his predecessor, thereby "conserving" her.