Do Amish men dominate their wives?

Do Amish women have freedom in their marriages? Are they dominated by their husbands? What does “head of household” mean?

Read on for some of my own observations on these questions – or check out the video above.

Head of household

Do Amish husbands control their wives? This is a bit of a sensitive question, I suppose. The Amish male is considered the head of the household – and the Amish see Biblical basis in that.

But I would say in healthy Amish marriages, the Amish wife’s voice is definitely recognized. And behind the public face, her voice can hold equal weight to that of the husband, for instance in family decisions.

Amish women contradicting the stereotype

You know, you’ll come across some very confident and outspoken Amish women, which kind of belies or contradicts the popular picture we might have of Amish females.

A quick story. When I was selling books to the Amish, I would almost always want to have both the husband and the wife together when they’re making a decision on whether to buy the books.

Because that’s typically something that an Amish wife would want to consult her husband with, especially if it was a couple-hundred-dollar purchase for a significant size set of books.

And, so I would try to always have those two together for that decision.

But as for who actually was making the decision on whether to get the books – it was often the husband looking at the wife saying, “honey, what do you think?” It was basically all up to her in the end.

The Amish Man Is The Formal Head

I share that story to illustrate that there is some sort of formal element of the Amish man being the head of the household. Especially publicly and in formal, “official” situations.

But it’s not like he’s some dominating figure who is controlling everything his wife does. I think quite the opposite, in many Amish households – that is, healthy Amish households.

He’s going to trust his wife on a lot of decisions. She knows a lot more about what is needed in the home, garden, or other classically “female” Amish domains.

She of course has her own views and opinions, and a good Amish husband respects his wife’s preferences and wishes.

For that matter, as an aside, Amish women have a formal voice in the Amish church – just like the men, they are able to vote on church matters, in particular, nominating a candidate for the ministry (even though they do not serve in the ministry).

Now I’m not going to say that it’s there are no examples of unhealthy Amish marriages – where the man is a dominating figure. Because that’s certainly the case in some homes – just as it is in non-Amish society.

You may even see in certain communities, that the women have more of a – I would say – more of an individualistic nature.

That’s in contrast to some other communities, where they at least appear to the outward world a little bit more meek or subdued.

And Amish communities can have certain tendencies. But I don’t want to go too far into generalizing about communities on this topic.

The point here is that, yes, the Amish man is the ostensible head of the household.

But the Amish women often wields a great deal of influence and authority within the household as well – even though publicly he’s going to be the formal head of family.

For more, see:

• Can Amish people get divorced?
• The lives & roles of Amish women
• When do Amish get married?
• 9 Ways Amish Women’s Lives Have Changed
• How large are Amish families?
• Do Amish remarry?
• Do Amish practice polygamy?
• Can Amish People Marry non-Amish?