Mormon 6:19 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
O ye fair sons and daughters ye fathers and mothers ye [husbands 1ABCEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|hushand D] and wives ye fair ones how is it that ye could have fallen

The singular husband in the 1841 British edition is a clear typo. Given all the other plural conjuncts here (sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, and wives), we definitely expect the plural husbands. Note that the word was actually set as hushand by the 1841 compositor. This is because a letter h had been accidentally placed in the box for the b letter during the preceding distribution of the type. Errors in type distribution occurred very frequently in the 1841 edition. Overall, h was substituted for b 20 times and b for h 16 times.

Summary: Maintain in Mormon 6:19 the original plural husbands, which is what we expect given the surrounding plurals.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 6

References