With Lehi gone, Laman and Lemuel are now facing the very fear they have been expressing for years, that Nephi is attempting to rule over them. Nephi gives us this much explicitly. It is clear that this fear/hatred had been a continuing undercurrent with Laman and Lemuel (dating at least back to the recovery of the brass plates, if there were not unwritten seeds of such a dissatisfaction with Nephi earlier). It appears that Lehi was able to hold his family together by his patriarchal power, or by Laman and Lemuel's sense of duty to their father. There is now nothing to hold the family together, and Nephi begins the story of the separation of the family into two factions.