Daily life inside an Amish community abides by generations-old traditions that have remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years, with rules carefully made to place humility, faith, family, and community over modern comforts.
No motor vehicles
You cannot own or drive an automobile. You must use a traditional horse and buggy for transportation. This limits how far you can travel, keeping you close to home.
This is intentional. Without cars to take you far away, church members work, socialize, and remain with their neighbors, keeping the family together and safeguarding close-knit communities.
No public grid
Your house cannot be connected to the public electrical grid or any type of public utility. Hooking into society’s power grid is considered a tangible link to the outside world of commerce and internet temptations.
They avoid those things by insulating themselves with alternate forms of self-contained power like propane gas for cooking, kerosene lanterns, and localized hydraulics for workshop tools.
Plain dress codes
All clothing must conform to the uniform standard set by the community. Men wear plain colored shirts, solid-colored pants with suspenders (no belts allowed), and a hat with a brim. Women wear long dresses with sleeves that extend to the wrist, and cover their dress with an apron and prayer cape.
With such strict dress regulations enforced upon the entire community, nobody is able to stand out through their sense of fashion as a means of flaunting wealth.
Banned fasteners
As a man, all of your suit coats, vests, and jackets that you wear formally will be held together with plain metal hooks and eyes instead of buttons or zippers. Fancy buttons used to symbolize elite European military and wealthy aristocrats.
Since the Amish believe in total pacifism and humility, buttons came to represent war and pride, which are adamantly avoided.
Marriage beards
If you are a man, you are not allowed to have any facial hair whatsoever until marriage. Right after a man is married, he must immediately stop shaving his jawline and begin to grow a full beard.
This beard is grown to publicly demonstrate that he is married and an adult man. Men are also forbidden from growing a mustache, which is seen as the symbol of brutish European militarists.
No photographs
You can’t pose for photos, own a photographing device, or display picture frames on your wall. The Amish take the Bible’s Second Commandment that says, “Thou shalt not make graven images”, literally. Photos also are seen to cause vanity, individuality, and an obsession with external beauty instead of internal piety.
Limited schooling
Your formal education stops after the eighth grade. High school and college are strictly prohibited. The community runs its own one-room schoolhouses, which teach only basic reading, functional math, and farming techniques. You are forbidden from seeking higher education because intellectualism is considered a slippery slope of intellectual pride and self-reliance over cooperative faith.
No jewelry
You may not own any jewelry, not even wristwatches or wedding bands. Women are forbidden from wearing makeup, plucking their eyebrows, or cutting their hair. Hair must be kept long and covered by a white cloth prayer cap. Any practice that encourages you to focus attention on yourself or enhances your physical appearance is selfish.
Total pacifism
You cannot join the military, hold political office, vote in mainstream elections, or sue anyone in a court of law. The Amish follow Jesus’ command to “turn the other cheek.”
If someone punches you or takes something valuable from you, you will allow yourself to be wronged, and you will forgive the person who harmed you, instead of calling on the force of law to prosecute him.
Social shunning
If you break the rules, disobey church leaders, and get formally excommunicated by the church, then everyone in your community will shun you. Your friends, neighbors, and even parents and children will not eat with you, do business with you, or accept your gifts. It is intended as an act of love to encourage you to repent and come back to the community.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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