The Amish

by Donald B. Kraybill

  Early Childhood

  Amish homes are not child-centered. Children learn early that they have responsibilities and are expected to obey their elders. Sixteenth-century Anabaptist leader Menno Simons argued that parents have a moral responsibility to watch over the souls of their children, for “this is the chief and most important care of the godly, that their children may fear God, do good, and be saved.” He contended that although worldly parents might desire for their children “that which is earthly and perishable, such as money, honor, fame and wealth,” true Christians have a duty to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”7

  A widely held maxim in Amish society is that children reflect the teaching they receive from their parents. In the words of one woman, “If you raise your children right, they won’t leave the Amish.” Thus, parents feel strong social and religious pressures to steer their children toward the church. With no formal institutions for religious education—no Sunday schools, church camps, or Bible schools—the burden of a child’s spiritual formation falls on parental shoulders. Biblical teaching enjoins parents to “train up” their children to honor, respect, and obey their parents. The words of the fifth commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” are heard frequently in Amish circles.8

  These Amish parents with their young child are visiting Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine. Michael Cohn

  As soon as children are old enough to be disciplined, about the age they start to walk, they are old enough to begin learning their roles in the community.9 And, as befits a community in which the church and one’s role as a Christian are most important, the first lessons of the preschool stage involve obedience to God. Writing in Family Life, one mother recounted the time she decided that “our one-year-old should learn to be more quiet during family prayer.” As she tells the story, “When prayer was finished, I gave him a slap on his seat, which started him crying in rebellion. I spanked and talked to him until I felt my strength and heart faltering and failing me in accomplishing the needed discipline.” The payoff came, she says, when on “the next Sunday, I had such a different child in church. Then I wondered why I had put it off so long, thinking it was just a minor thing.”10

  Socialization into the community begins early. The little girl who has worn a Kapp (head covering) since birth will protest its removal by the time she is two. Preschoolers “playing church” sit quietly on benches for ten or fifteen minutes at a stretch, replicating the behavior they see on Sundays. In myriad ways, young children imitate and practice adult behavior.

  There are few obvious gender differences in the treatment of young children. Although Amish parents, like their non-Amish counterparts, are likely to hand babies gendered toys—a truck to a boy, a toy purse to a girl—little boys carry dolls, little girls roll toy trucks back and forth, and toddlers play together regardless of sex. Depending on who is available and what work is pressing at home, a brother is just as likely to be told to watch his younger siblings as a sister.

  School Age

  In the third stage of socialization, beginning at age six or seven when they start attending school, Amish children are called “scholars.” Even then, their home plays the primary role in preparing them for an Amish life. When children are not in school, they are with their families, doing chores with their parents, siblings, and grandparents. In so doing, they learn the practical skills that will enable them to earn a living, keep a home, and raise a family.

  Generally, girls help their mothers and boys help their fathers, but work is not rigidly gendered. Far more important than their specific tasks is that they learn to be obedient, work hard, and do their best. Thus, if there are no “big boys” around, a girl will take over some of the outside barn or shop chores. Similarly, younger boys may be pressed into service around the house, watching younger siblings, cleaning, helping with dishes, or working in the vegetable garden. If they have no sisters, the boys take turns washing and drying the dishes for as long as they live at home.

  In school as at home, boys and girls work and play together, and on the playground, girls swing the baseball bat just as enthusiastically as the boys on the mixed-gender teams. Throughout their years in school, boys and girls continue to study the same lessons, but by the time they reach the older grades, sharper gender differences emerge in the choice of games and other activities. Sometimes the distinctions are subtle. In Swartzentruber schools, for example, children are often given printed pictures to color following the Friday spelling test. Girls receive pictures with flowers or home scenes, while boys are given pictures with puppies, horses, or barn life. The gender differences were quite striking at recess in one school, where the children built “teepees” together, but then, while the boys played hunting, the girls pretended to cook stew over a campfire. In real life, girls may clean the schoolroom on Friday afternoons while boys fill the wood box.

  As children get older, dress clearly marks gender. In the plainest communities, boy babies usually wear dresses and can be distinguished from girl babies only by their lack of a head covering—and even this difference is hidden outdoors, because both wear bonnets. Once they are toilet trained, however, little boys start wearing pants, and their dress mirrors that of their fathers. Girls’ dress marks two stages. Little girls wear pinafore-style aprons that button in the back over long-waisted dresses that also button in the back. At puberty they adopt adult-style “front shut dresses” and capes (a bodice worn over the main dress). In more traditional groups, dress can signal an in-between stage: preteen girls wear crossed capes instead of the aprons they have worn since birth. Only after completing school, at age fourteen, do they begin to dress as adult women. In other church-communities, girls are wearing adult-style dresses by the seventh grade.11

  Two Amish mothers and their eight children enjoy the delights of wading in a stream. Young children learn communal habits as they grow up surrounded by extended family and community. Doyle Yoder

  Adolescence

  Between the ages of fourteen and sixteen or seventeen, after finishing eighth grade and before joining die Youngie (young folks), Amish teens begin to assume adult roles but without adult responsibilities. Psychologist Richard Stevick calls this brief, twoyear period “the quiet years.”12 Teens begin life in “the real world,” moving beyond the less-valued school studies into more tangible work activity.

  During this period, children begin practicing adult roles and, depending on the family, may even assume adult tasks. For example, girls begin to take a greater part in meal preparation and learn to make head coverings and clothing, while boys take charge of livestock or a particular job in a shop. Some young teens may also begin to “hire out,” working for Amish neighbors or family members. A girl may care for her young nieces or nephews at a married sister’s house, while a boy might work at his older brother’s sawmill, furniture shop, or market stand. Immersed full-time in work, Amish adolescents experience intensive vocational training.

  The teenage years also mark a new relationship with family and church, for at sixteen or seventeen years of age, teens join the Youngie. At this point, they gain more autonomy, and the peer group becomes much more important. This period, called Rumspringa (see chapter 12), is the bridge from childhood to adulthood. During this transition, teens ponder the most important decisions of their lives: whether to become baptized and join the church and whether and whom to marry.

  There is typically little sex education, and despite growing up around animals, children in the most conservative affiliations are often uninformed about reproduction. One Swartzentruber man was surprised to learn—after he got married—that women had menstrual cycles. Boys may be used to their sisters being “sick” at regular intervals, but it is never discussed. Nor will parents explain to boys or young girls who have not reached puberty why their older sisters will not participate in canning or baking at particular times of the month.13 In contrast, most members of the more progressive groups are fully aware of mens
truation and sexual reproduction issues.

  Adulthood

  At Home

  Gender roles are fully realized in marriage, when spouses seal an eternal and holy bond of matrimony. Divorce, considered a sin, is forbidden in Amish society. One of the “Ten Rules for a Successful Marriage” published in two regional Amish newsletters is “never, never, never even think of divorce as a solution for your marriage problems.”14 The taboo on divorce is so strong that if one partner leaves the Amish, remarriage for the remaining one may only occur after the death of the wayward spouse. Remarriage is quite common among widows and widowers, however.

  Amish marriages are grounded more in respect than in romance, and affection is typically displayed only in private. Yet this is another of the ten rules: “Keep your love as romantic as possible. Appreciate each other. Express that appreciation in actual love and affection in the home.”15 Some husbands in communities more open to change acknowledge Valentine’s Day with a bouquet of flowers or a card. Although hugging in social gatherings is rare and discouraged, an Amish woman suggested in a cookbook she compiled that hugging is good for a healthy marriage.16

  The Amish draw on the Bible for their understanding of appropriate gender roles. They cite the New Testament proclamation, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing” (Eph. 5:22–24). A guide for Christian living published by Pathway Publishers cites Scripture (1 Pet. 3:1) to argue that, as a “keeper at home,” a wife should not be “seeking employment outside the home, or seeking fulfillment in a ‘career.’”17

  Guided by these religious beliefs, the husband, with the help of his wife, takes the lead in providing for the spiritual and material welfare of the home. An Amish man is the public face of his family, the spokesperson to the outside world, and he ostensibly makes the final decisions, while his wife remains in the background. Because the public face of Amish life is what the world sees, it is not surprising that the popular image of Amish life is one of ironclad patriarchy.

  Yet the term patriarchy obscures a more complicated gender reality. Within the family, hierarchy is seldom absolute, and many Amish marriages are characterized by mutual support and an equality that is also based in Scripture. After all, one preacher insisted, “Doesn’t it say in Galatians, ‘There is no such thing as … male and female, for you are all one person in Christ Jesus’?” Ultimately, a woman’s equality as a Christian often overrules her subordination to men in the earthly hierarchy. As one scholar puts it, “Amish marriage must be ‘in the Lord’: that is, with a coreligionist.” This means that “an individual’s first duty is to God (as represented by the church-community), and one’s second responsibility is to one’s spouse.”18 If a husband makes a decision, his wife is expected to yield to it—but not if that places her in conflict with the Ordnung. Such an action by a husband would be considered very improper.

  In the privacy of the home, the softer side of patriarchy appears because the Amish see marriage as “a partnership in the Lord and the basis of a family whose function [is] to produce willing, responsible members of the believing family.”19 In Amish eyes, both parents play important roles—the wife watches over the children and runs the house, while the husband takes the lead in earning an income and dealing with outside issues. As one Amish man put it, “The husband is the King and his wife, the Queen.” In other words, within the family, the husband and the wife share responsibility and are mutually dependent on each other.20

  This partnership is largely unseen by outsiders. More significantly, mainstream notions of gender equality, which assume equal access to all public roles, prevent many non-Amish people from seeing the power Amish women exercise in their communities. Yet, as an Old Order bishop writes, “Who would say that a mother’s role is of less importance in eternity than a father’s? Although women are not called to be leaders or set in places above men, their work is of equal worth before God.”21

  Similarly, Amish-born Louise Stoltzfus recounts how a visiting minister once asked a congregation, “Who has the most important role in the church?” In response, he answered, “Not the deacon, the minister or the bishop; it is the mothers with babies on their laps who have the most important task in our church.” Stoltzfus concludes, “It was a special blessing to hear a church leader give colloquial voice, during what is usually a formal presentation, to this fundamental truth of Amish faith and understanding. The family is central. To be a mother is a high and holy calling.”22

  Women participate in the religious, political, and economic decision making in their family and Gmay. Indeed, husbands often defer to their wives’ opinions and expertise, and many spouses jointly hold mortgages and bank accounts and make major decisions together. Thus, despite the patriarchal language that locates women in a position of subjugation, their role is frequently akin to that of a partner. The index of wives’ names in some Amish directories is titled “Marriage Partners.” One Amish housewife goes further: “If you listen to the men speaking, they say, ‘This is what my mother did.’ Mothers rule the world.”

  Although Amish work is gendered, the boundaries between “men’s work” and “women’s work” are permeable. Men hold and care for young children during the church service. Women help in the shop, barn, or field as needed. Men and women work side-by-side preparing food at weddings and charity auctions. For large public events, men take the lead in making ice cream and barbecuing chicken. Men also help with the vegetable garden, preparing it for planting and seeding, weeding, and harvesting. That said, certain activities show little crossover: welding and diesel repair are men’s work, cross-stitching and canning are women’s.

  Despite the broad cultural patterns of gender roles and family norms, the equation of power in Amish families, as in those of their non-Amish counterparts, varies with the personalities of the spouses. In some households, the husband functions as the leader in all things. In others, the wife dominates family dynamics, although she may defer to her husband in public settings. In still others, the spouses are more equally balanced. As in all human societies, some Amish marriages are dysfunctional, and these couples may or may not accept outside help to resolve their troubles.23

  In the Church-Community

  Within the church, as within the family, men and women occupy separate domains that often overlap. In public life, the patriarchal nature of Amish society is more obvious. Only men serve as ministers and bishops, so all church functions—preaching, praying in public, administering communion, leading members’ meetings and council meetings—lie solidly within their sphere.

  Women, however, share responsibility for the well-being of the community. Although men have the obvious leadership roles, women prepare the home in which the congregation worships. Marilyn Lehman, who grew up Amish in LaGrange County, Indiana, contends that when women prepare the home and food for the fellowship meal after church, they transform the space “from ordinary to ceremonial.” Furthermore, she argues, the collective work done by women—the wife, her sisters, her daughters, and nearby female neighbors—is “as vital to the creation and maintenance of community as it is to the preparation of space for ceremony.” Women’s collective work creates and undergirds the ceremonial space that supports the Sunday morning worship.24

  As church members, women have a voice and a vote in church decision making and thus some constraint on men’s exercise of power. Women join with men to decide when a new minister is needed, and they also nominate candidates for ordination. Women, like men, are responsible for maintaining the Ordnung, and they too have a vote when it is reaffirmed. When asked whether the ministers would listen if she had a disagreement with the Ordnung, one young woman answered, “Of course—they would have to!” As Louise Stoltzfus puts it, “Women are very free to say what’s on their minds.”25 On the other
hand, said one man, “Women are not free to say what’s on their minds in a church meeting and do so at the risk of making a confession for being out of their place. At the same time, women have a tremendous influence in the community and in private conversations with their ‘leader husbands’ that are very instrumental … to maintaining the peace and harmony of the congregation.”26

  Outside of the Gmay, men also fill the leadership roles on local Amish school boards and on settlement-wide committees involving safety, fire and storm insurance, loan funds, trusteeships for failing businesses, government relations, and mental health. Women take the lead in organizing more informal gatherings—weddings, funerals, reunions—especially those aspects pertaining to food.

  Women, like men, are obliged to obey God and refrain from worldly things. As a woman in an ultratraditional community put it, at the baptism ceremony “the Amish way is that the men have to go ahead of the women, but the women get baptized just as well as the men do.” In short, the Amish notion of the church as the body of Christ in which male and female are spiritual equals requires and honors the participation of both, although they participate in different ways.

  Old Age

  The relationships Amish couples establish as adults carry them through to the final stage, when they become simply “old folks.” In their retirement years, parents move to a Dawdyhaus, a small apartment or cottage adjacent to the main house of one of their married children, and turn their business or farm over to others. Because offspring are eager to assume ownership of the business or farm and the older folks are needed to help them, it is not unusual for retirement to begin in the fifties.