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 the sons will have to go begging.
The wife has the right to continue living in the family home 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 brothers a dowry to be paid to her out of the estate. The amount of the dowry is the greater of the amount the father gave to his other daughters who married during his lifetime or 10 percent 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 receive support from the estate (not the right to the dowry) expires when she reaches the age of twelve and a half, bagrut. From then on, she must rely on charity. Why this is so is as much of a mystery, a chok, as death itself.