Narrated Ibn `Abbas:Regarding the Qur'anic Verse: 'O you who believe! You are forbidden to inherit women against their will.' (4.19) The custom (in the Pre-Islamic Period) was that if a man died, his relatives used to have the right to inherit his wife, and if one of them wished, he could marry her, or they could marry her to somebody else, or prevent her from marrying if they wished, for they had more right to dispose of her than her own relatives. Therefore this Verse was revealed concerning this matter

English translation · Sahih al-Bukhari