I have a lot of plain friends, and they just laugh at the Beverly Lewis books because they make Amish life look like paradise when it's anything BUT.
Amish life is very hard. You have to live by the rules, and there are lots of them, or face being kicked out or punished. And although the Amish have the reputation of being ultra-spiritual, their societies and communities have the same problems as everyone else. And in Amish communities, those problems are usually kept secret and dealt with in ways that don't necessarily make for justice.
We used to have a young woman who came here whose family had left the Amish, and she told some pretty bad nightmare stories of the way woman are treated, and about widespread sexual abuse of young girls and even incest. She told us that her mother had been raped as a teenager by a church elder, and then shamed because she was pregnant outside of marriage. Secret closed societies lend themselves to pretty horrible injustices sometimes.
Where I live, near one of the biggest Amish communities in the world, there is rampant alcoholism among the Amish, too, and it often goes hand-in-hand with spousal abuse.
The truth is, there is no idyllic lifestyle this side of heaven. No matter WHAT you read in novels.
Remember, Lewis is selling books and the way she does that is to create a fanatsy world filled with pleasant emotions. But the only thing her books and the Amish life have in common is some traditionally Amish names and culture.
but I'll still read them because she is a fabulous writer. Thanks for the info and God bless you.
