Mormon's Wife

As many feminists have pointed out, The Book of Mormon only identifies 6 women by name: Sariah, Sarah, Abish, Mary, Isabel, and Eve. Significantly, Mormon, the very man compiling the Book of Mormon, never once mentions his wife. We have letters between Mormon and his son Moroni, and with them many examples of the close relationship between father and son, but never any between husband and wife, or mother and son. Mormon's wife's absence is conspicuous.

Mormon feminists cite this as an example of the heavy-handed patriarchy implicit in the Book of Mormon; and, frankly, they're probably right. Hugh Nibley built his career positing the Nephites and Lamanites as displanted Semitic Bedouins, and as TE Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" (which I'm currently reading) demonstrates, there's probably few groups under the sun more gender-exclusive than the Bedouins.

But I will also add this--I am currently working on two writing projects, one about a girl I'm trying to get over, and one concerning my Mother's death. For the first, to my great relief, I find that the more I write about her, the less I remember her; the page now remembers her, not me. Writing about her has actually been therapeutic.

As for the second, I've actually become disconcerted by how much less I reflect on my Mother's death since I've been writing on it; for the page now remembers her, not me. In fact, I fear sometimes that I've almost lost her to the page.

My point is, I wonder how much the writing of the Book of Mormon was therapeutic for Mormon and Moroni, how much of recording the downfall and destruction of their people was now remembered by the pages of the plates, and not by them. For all of how soul-rendering tragic was the destruction of their nation, their families, their friends, I wonder if actually recording down "Oh ye fair ones, how is it ye could have fallen!" somehow made it easier to deal with. For now the plates lamented, not them, and they could forget these searing memories at last.

And thus I wonder if Moroni recording epistles from his own father allowed him to finally work through his grief about losing his beloved father.

Which again, makes it all the more significant that neither include a word about Mormon's wife.

Here's my thought: I can testify from writing about my Mother, that there are certain memories, no matter how painful, that you just don't want to forget. They are precious to you; they are part of you. They define you. You don't want the page to take them from you, no matter how much it may hurt sometimes.

I wonder if Mormon and Moroni understood this.

And that for all that these two forlorn men needed to work through their grief, for as much as The Book of Mormon was about them as it is about us, I wonder if the memory of Mormon's wife, of Moroni's mother, was something too precious to risk to the page. That, while they were willing to silence all their other painful memories, if this precious woman was one memory that they wanted to keep for themselves, no matter how much it hurt to remember her lost, no matter how long or far they wandered alone.