History and Culture (continued)
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Besides a means of separation, the Ordnung provides a communal means of managing the natural human tendency toward self-exaltation (Hochmut) and manipulative power. Through individual submission (Gelassenheit) to the community’s will, members are able to contribute to a network of community relationships. Tendencies viewed as disruptive and dangerous –such as self-seeking, personal power, wealth, and status-are channeled into a social order of love and brotherhood. Order and tidiness characterize the physical Amish community. Witness the well-tended gardens and fields, the well-kept buildings and lawns, and the laundry hanging out on the line in rows according to size and color.

A contemporary Amish minister says of the Ordnung: “A respected Ordnung generates peace, love, contentment, equality and unity. It creates a desire for togetherness and fellowship. It binds marriages, it strengthens family ties to live together, to work together and to commune secluded from the world.” Concerning those who disobey, he explains: “We will always have members that, when they fall prey to sin, will blame the Ordnung. A rebelling member will label it ‘a man –made law with no scriptural base.’ We have a minority who resist the Ordnung. Obedience is a close associate to Ordnung is a law, a bondage of suppression, the person who has learned to live within a respectful church Ordnung appreciates its value. It gives freedom of heart, peace of mind, and clear conscience. Such a person has actually more freedom, more liberty, and more privilege than those who would be bound to the outside.

Sources: Mennonite Yearbook (Scottdale, Pa.), 1995-1967; The New American Almanac
(Baltic, Ohio), 1930-1991; U.S., Census of Religious Bodies, 1890; and Family Life
(April 1992): 19-24

The status of Amish women is positively related to the degree to which they produce economic goods and services essential to the family. Goods produced on Amish farms, such as fruits and vegetables, meat, and dairy products, help to support the family. Women are productive because they engaged in subsistence agriculture and they also produce children needed for work on the farm. They preserve large quantities of meat and vegetables for the family. They also make clothing for all the family members. Women who live on farms are accorded greater economic importance than Amish women who live in other settings. The Amish as a whole recognize the important contributions women make. Men cannot farm without wives and vice versa. Although Amish society is acknowledged to be patriarchal, the division of labor is more equal than most outsiders realize. Amish men seldom compliment women, but they daily show how much they esteem them.

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