I can't find a link to this article, so I'm just going to type it in manually.
THE JEWISH PRESS
Friday, December 25, 2009
DAF YOMI TOPICS
Raphael Grunfeld
Bat Bimkom Ben [a daughter instead of a son]"In attempting to explain why the Jewish law of inheritance does not permit daughters to inherit [from] their father if the father has sons, we have mentioned the principal of patrilinial descent [side grumble: if this works for inheritance, why not for defining who is a Jew?] and the fact that the woman looks to her husband's "Family Bank" for support than than to her own father.
The second principle to bear in mind is that the rights of the daughter and the wife to the estate of the father/husband are only part of their financial rights to the Family Bank.
Both the daughter and the wife have other rights against the Family Bank for financial support. Were they to receive a portion of the estate in addition to these other financial rights, they would be double dipping.
What are these other rights of the daughter and wife of the deceased against the Family Bank?
Both the daughter and the wife of the deceased have the right, following his death, to have his estate pay for their food, clothing and medical expenses and the right to use the household utensils and the services of the family household domestic personnel. The expenses involved in the support of the daughter and the wife are a charge on the estate in the hands of the sons. If there are insufficient assets in the estate to pay for the upkeep of both the sons and the daughters, the sons must first take care of the needs of their sisters even if this means that the sons will have to go begging.
In addition, the wife has the right to continue living in the family house until she remarries. The daughter has the right to have her brothers pay for her furnished lodging until she marries. In addition, the daughter is entitled to receive from her brother a dowry to be paid to her out of the estate. The amount of the dowry is the greater of the amount that the father gave to his other daughters who married during his lifetime or 10% of the estate.
Although all of this may only take us part of the way to better understand why sons inherit ahead of daughters and wives, it does not take us all the way. For example, the legal right of the daughter to received support from the estate (not the right to the dowry) expires when she reaches the age of 12 1/2,
"Bagrut." From then on, she must rely on charity. Why this is so, is as much of a mystery, a
"Chok," as death itself."
Essentially, the Jewish law of inheritance reduces widows and female orphans to the status of beggars, totally dependent on the good will of their husband's/father's sons. That didn't work very well in Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility," did it?
The wife, who may have helped her husband, directly or indirectly, in his career, and/or who may have cared for him through illness, has no right to any of his estate if she should be fortunate enough to remarry. What reward does she get for her labors under the sun?
The daughter is cut loose to fend for herself at 12 1/2, an age at which, in the "developed" countries of the 21st-century world, she's too young either to work or to wed.
And all Rabbi Grunfeld has to say is that this law is a mystery?