Roles of Amish and American women compared and contrasted.
There are some differences as well as few similarities between the Amish women and the contemporary American women. For the purpose of easy understanding and quick grasp, I choose to categorize them under the following subheadings.
Role as wife: Amish women greatly value the institution of marriage; they do everything humanly possible to make their marriages work. More importantly, they believe in the scriptural injunction that says “wives submit yourselves onto your husbands, as onto the lord.”(Ephesians 5:22) They realize that the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. (Ephesians 5:23) There is no power struggle between the wife and her husband and in conformity with their culture; they abhor exaltation, called pride. Women greatly humble themselves and reverence their husbands and God. Amish women know how to take good care of their husbands' through good smiles, patience, charity and humility.
The American women values marriages but there are numerous factors militating against successful marriages; too busy lifestyle, undue competition between wife and husband, friend's influence, incessant work, carelessness and praylessness, inability of the wife to submit to the husband and covetousness. It is a common practice that a husband and wife living in the same room might not see each other for two or three days due to work pressure.
Role as Mother: Amish mothers deliver their babies at home, the older women believe in having as many children as God gives them, while younger mothers thought the ideal number of children a woman should have is six. Averagely Amish gave birth to 6.5 children; slightly over 10 percent of Amish families have 10 or more children. When a new baby is born, several adult women suddenly appear to help with the care of the baby for several months. These comprise the grandmothers, sisters, and aunts. Amish teach their children the way of God and the norms of their land. All teachings of the children are the prerequisite of the family.
American mothers deliver their babies in hospitals. Friends or peer group from the church might assist the lucky ones for a couple of days after which she takes the baby to a day care in readiness to returning to work. An average American woman has three children. Nevertheless, some might determine not to have any.
Role as working in the community. The Amish women work in the homes and close to their homes. They are efficient managers, in addition to providing childcare the wife normally oversees the garden, preserves food, cooks, cleans, washes, sews and supervises the yard work. The women cherish making gardens and caring for flowers. The responsibilities of mowing the lawns with push mowers without engines falls on the women. Those women who live on a farm often assist their men with barn chores -feeding calves, milking cows, gathering eggs, and harvesting crops and vegetables. Few women do clerical jobs or bookkeeping in their husband's shop. Amish women devote their energy to family living; they do not belief in working away from home. They “view professionals working away from home and children as a distortion of God's created order that can only lead to divorce”. (p. 86). Amish women are happy doing their jobs of family caring and they express high levels of social and personal satisfaction.
Contrary to the belief and practices of the Amish women, American women work mostly away from home doing professional jobs as their men counterpart's. Women drive trucks, paint houses, and do construction jobs, nursing, doctors, lawyers, judges, carpentry and virtually any job including working in the mortuary. Pressure of work affects the entire life activities and may not let a typical American woman have enough time for the family.
Family ties: The family is the cornerstone, most important component of the Amish structure they value large family closely knitted together. Most Amish youth marry between the age of nineteen and twenty-five. Marriage is highly esteemed, and raising a family is the professional career of Amish adults. Statistics had it that nine out of ten adults are married, and they usually sustain their marriages, as divorce is a taboo. There is automatic excommunication from the community of anyone that initiates a divorce; hence, the marriage vow is rarely broken.
Americans favor a nuclear type of family, comprised of the husband, wife and their children. There is no specific age an American marries; it could be earlier than nineteen or later than twenty five depending on many factors, such as education, family background, or faith. Divorce is sporadic; incidence of single mothers is in the increase. American women marry for different reasons other than child rearing, such as protection, provision or for companionship to mention but a few.
