The Marriage and Courting in Amish and Mormons Cultures

Introduction

Marriage is a foundering institution in the present American society, and the pressures that have eroded its cultural support have had a severely erosive effect upon marital and family life within the different communities as well. In this paper the marriage and courting of the two cultures, the Amish and the Mormons have been discussed.

Discussion

Amish are a religious movement that originated as the most conservative in the direction of mennonitstvo (Protestant denominations) and then became a separate Protestant religious denomination. The Amish are simple living and clothing, reluctance to accept some modern technology and convenience. Most Amish communities do not build places of worship and conduct worship in the home, not engaged in missionary work and rarely take to his new converts from the side (Hostetler, pp. 45). Mormons are the supporters, participants and followers of Mormonism, the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement. Most often this term refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly, but inaccurately referred to as the Mormon Church. The concept of "Mormon" refers not only to religion but also texts, culture and art. As the term became especially popular to refer to the Mormon fundamentalist who continue to adhere to the practice of polygamy, of which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially abandoned in 1890 (Ludlow, pp. 67).

For generations, the Amish marry only with fellow believers (sometimes with Mennonites), because of what form a genetically closed human population, atypical for the modern world. Due to the closely related marriages within a relatively small initial group of people in many communities, the Amish are increasingly manifest certain hereditary characteristics, and sometimes hereditary diseases (Hostetler, pp. 45). The Mormons practice polygamy. In 1843, in Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith (the founder ...