Stephen Scott’s Why Do They Dress That Way? is an extensive and very interesting look at dress customs among plain religious groups. In the book, Scott relates an amusing anecdote:
“…away from their home environment, plain people are often mistaken for nuns or priests and vice versa. One group of plain girls from Pennsylvania took the train to visit friends in Iowa. Since there was a long layover in Chicago, they decided to take a taxi to see some of the sights. The taxi driver, thinking they might be nuns, asked, “Are you sisters?” One of the girls misunderstood the nature of the question, [and] replied, “No, but some of us are cousins.”
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I have that book and it really helped me to understand why they dress as they do. I wonder how many have been asked if they are Mormon. When I started dressing plain, this was a question I got and was taken aback. About a year or so later was the story of the fundamental group.
When traveling in Poland with my wife and her sister, who are Mennonites wearing hanging white veils, we got a lot of stares. Not because of the veils, which look very much like those of some of the orders of nuns in Poland. It was because my wife was seven months pregnant! There were many whispered comments along the lines of, “Look at the bad nun!”
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Reminds me of a time when I was in Bolivia, wearing a collarless shirt (not something I really do that often…)
¿Es usted padre? (Are you a father?) a man asked me.
I blew him away by saying, “No, soy hijo de Dios.” (No, I am a son of God.)
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Mike