Amish Culture of the Past and Present

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Amish Culture of the Past and Present Brian Rustmann ANT 101 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Christina Winn April 30, 2012 Although there are many different cultural lifestyles today, most people think the Amish way of life is a way of the past or as a cult, but in reality, the Amish community is one of the strongest cultures of today’s societies, Amish communities are more about keeping their kinship, beliefs, values and social change cultures from the past and continuing to carry them on into the future. While kinship is found in everyone’s culture, many cultures have different beliefs in the way their marriages are arranged or celebrated. Most cultures among foragers a bride is bought by the groom’s family, most of the middle-eastern cultures are arranged marriages between two families usually because of royalty or family values, and then the others are like most of us today finding our soul mates. Whether it is at work, church, social gathering with friend or now the internet by ways of on-line dating kinship is changing in today’s society, but the Amish are still the same in their ways and beliefs. In reading articles on the Amish culture, there was a very interesting fact about their marriages. According to the American Folklore Society, the only days that Amish people are married are on Tuesday and Thursday. Another interesting fact is they only marry during certain times of the year which is called the wedding season. (Schreiber,1960). Believe it or not the thought process behind the wedding season really makes sense to the Amish community since they are described as emerging agriculturalists. After reading many pages of literature about why the Amish have only two wedding days, it comes down their religious beliefs. Since there are only two days that the weddings can be held on and are very large, they take

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