At the very end of page 311ªof 𝓞, Oliver Cowdery wrote a short sublinear line of text, “wives & our children &”. The last ampersand was weakly written but is visible in the ultraviolet photographs for all but the lowest fourth of the letter. It is not surprising that when Oliver copied the text from 𝓞 into 𝓟 he omitted this page-final ampersand. The and is not required here, although it does make the series of prepositional phrases headed by by read more smoothly. Note, however, that there is no and between the first two conjuncts, “by our faith” and “by our religion” (𝓞 is extant there). As discussed under Alma 43:47, the original text permits variation in the use of and between conjuncts.
Summary: Restore in Alma 44:5 the original and between the two long conjuncts, “by the sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children” and “by that liberty which binds us to our lands and our country”.