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Summary
- Amish couples usually marry in their early twenties: in recent studies of settlement directories, brides averaged about 21 to 22 and grooms about 22.3 to 23.9.
- A typical Amish mother has her first baby at about 22 to 23.5, a year to a year and a half after the wedding. None of these studies gives an age at first pregnancy; subtracting nine months from the age at first birth gives about 21 to 23.
- The Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies counts five or more children on average in Amish families; women who have finished having children average about six to eight, from 5.8 among Holmes County New Order women to 10.4 among the Swartzentruber in Henry Troyer’s 2022 study.
- The Amish marry only other baptized members of the church, do not permit first cousins to marry, and do not allow divorce.
- In Lancaster County about three Amish weddings in four from 2010 to 2014 took place in November, almost all on a Tuesday or a Thursday; in Holmes County, Ohio, May and September are now the most popular months.
- Amish women give birth at home, in birth centers or in hospitals; among the Amish of southwestern Wisconsin, 58 percent of babies born from 2005 to 2009 were born at home.
- Amish teaching leaves the number of children to God, but practice varies: in a survey published in 2007, 21 percent of 249 married Amish women aged 18 to 45 in Lancaster County said they were using birth control.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- King James Version: Genesis 1:28; Matthew 19:6; 1 Corinthians 7:39, BibleGateway.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College, “Amish Population Profile, 2026”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Frequently Asked Questions”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Population Growth”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Religious Rituals”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Rumspringa”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Regulations”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Beliefs”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Family”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Health”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Mutual Aid”, Amish Studies.
- Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, “Leadership”, Amish Studies.
- Joseph F. Donnermeyer, “A Demographic Profile of the Greater Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Amish”, The Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities 3, no. 2 (2023): 1–34, doi:10.18061/jpac.v3i2.9154.
- Lawrence Greksa, “Population Growth and Fertility Patterns in an Old Order Amish Settlement: A 21-Year Follow-Up Study”, The Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities 1, no. 2 (2021): 82–94, doi:10.18061/jpac.v1i2.7953.
- Henry Troyer, “The Varying Fertilities of the Amish Groups of Holmes County, Ohio”, The Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities 3, no. 1 (2022): 54–64, doi:10.18061/jpac.v3i1.9207.
- Thomas J. Meyers, “A Demographic Profile of the Elkhart-LaGrange Old Order Amish Settlement”, The Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities 3, no. 1 (2022): 65–82, doi:10.18061/jpac.v3i1.9157.
- Joe Donnermeyer, “6 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Ohio’s Largest Amish Community”, 27 July 2026, summarizing Joseph F. Donnermeyer and Henry Troyer, “A Population Profile of the Greater Holmes County Amish Settlement”, The Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities 6, no. 2 (2026), Amish America.
- J. Deline and others, “Low Primary Cesarean Rate and High VBAC Rate With Good Outcomes in an Amish Birthing Center”, Annals of Family Medicine 10, no. 6 (2012): 530–537, PubMed Central.
- K. Campanella, J. E. Korbin and L. Acheson, “Pregnancy and Childbirth among the Amish”, Social Science & Medicine 36, no. 3 (1993): 333–342, PubMed.
- K. Miller and others, “Health Status, Health Conditions, and Health Behaviors among Amish Women: Results from the Central Pennsylvania Women’s Health Study (CePAWHS)”, Women’s Health Issues 17, no. 3 (2007): 162–171, PubMed (its birth-control figure as reported by Troyer, 2022).
- Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), article 12, “Of the State of Matrimony”, tr. Joseph Sohm (1886), Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.
- Ernst H. Correll, Harold S. Bender and J. Howard Kauffman, “Marriage” (1957, updated 1990), Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.
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