Amish Dilemma
Page 15
Youth are not permitted to date until they are sixteen. Then they’ll have permission to attend singings with other youth. The boys will “court” or ask the girl to allow him to take them home. There is no kissing or close contact.
There is no real dating such as youth outside the Amish do. At seventeen and sometimes older they have a year of Rumspringa which is a time to “sow their oats”. They might experiment with drinking, smoking going to movies, learning to drive a car, dress in non Amish clothes or do things not allowed in the Amish faith. Sometimes a few will go together and rent an apartment in town to see if they’d rather live as Englisch. They then have a choice of living outside the Amish community giving up family and Amish friends or adhering to the Amish rules and faith and being baptized.
When they choose the Amish faith they’ll then be baptized in the church and promise to follow the rules and regulations of the church.
When girls are eighteen and boys are twenty (or younger or older) they might choose a partner for life. They choose carefully for it is for life; no divorce.
Clothing is plain without buttons, designs in the material or anything that would make a person feel vain or better than others. The men wear plain black suits with no zipper in the pants, shirts with no collars or adornments, and suspenders. Clothing is usually held together with hooks and eyes. For men a straw hat is worn during hot weather and a black felt hat is worn during colder weather. Sometimes the men are permitted instead of a coat to wear a plain black vest. Black shoes or boots are worn the year around. 1 Timothy 2:9 gives them a guide of dress. Women must dress modestly with decency and propriety not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes. Paul had given these instructions to people of Ephesus where Timothy led a church. Of course the men dressed the same with humble plain clothing.
Women wear long dresses, long black stockings, black shoes, and a white prayer kapp (cap). Their hair is parted in the middle, drawn back and put in a bun in the back with the white prayer kapp covering the head. Black bonnets are worn over the prayer kapp when they go outside their residence.
Sometimes a cape is worn. A new order of Amish can use different colors, lilac or green cloth for them to use to make their dresses. They can wear these as long as they do not use anything to make them “showy”. No cosmetics or jewelry. They may wear white in which to be buried or the women can be buried in their wedding dress.
Farms have always been the major form of income. Lots of children are needed to work the farm and care for the animals. The women all have vegetable gardens and lots of flowers. Chickens, turkeys and peacocks are raised for eggs and meat and feathers; goats for milk, cows for milk and some pigs are raised. The Bishops have given permission for members to have stores to sell to their own people as well as the Englisch.
Harness shops, shops that make buggies and farm wagons, gift shops which include the beautiful quilts that are handmade, house painters, garden shops with home-grown flowers, restaurants and to be helpers to veterinarians are permitted. The stores also sell items made by hand such as bird houses, dog houses, wooden containers to hold garbage cans and kitchen supplies such as wooden spoons, bowls, quilting frames and delicious bread, cakes, cookies and pies. A few women make quilts and clothing for sale and the faceless dolls.
Little girls have dolls made from stuffed cloth and dressed as Amish with no faces because that would appear to be worldly. They follow the Bible command of “No graven images” thus refusing to have their pictures made for fear of having a graven image. Too they don’t want to have something that would make them feel proud or draw attention to themselves.
The younger people or the ones who have not yet joined the church can allow their picture to be taken as long as they don’t pose and act worldly.
Church members, married people and older ones do not allow their faces to be seen in a picture.
I have been asked the difference among the Amish, Mennonite and Quakers. The Amish men grow a beard when they marry. (Following the instructions in Leviticus 19:27) The Mennonites and Quakers are clean shaven. The Amish live strongly by no worldly conveniences but the others will buy a black car with no chrome or trim or have a black telephone.
The Amish still shun a member who disobeys the rules or who lives among, or marries outside the faith. The Mennonite and Quaker do not believe in shunning. All of them reject violence and quarreling.