Darcy and Lizzy Going Dutch?

Good morrow, dear readers! A question was asked on one of the JAFF FB groups recently about a modern Amish P&P variation. As I mentioned in my introduction in February 2023, my family and I spent five years in an Amish community, attempting to join the church; thus, such a variation would seem perfect for me. (The ultimate write what you know.) In some ways the story almost writes itself. The names would change to fit Amish culture, but the character sketches are already established in canon.

               Lizzy and her sisters – the daughters of a former Amish man who left the church as a young man to marry the English girl from Longbourn, the local town. For an added bit of drama – making Lizzy even more inappropriate – Mrs Bennet could be divorced. (Oh! My poor nerves!)

               Collins – cousin to Mr Bennet, hovering on the edges of the family and reported to be interested in returning his cousin to the true faith – but really interested in looking at his pretty cousins. (Doesn’t that just fit him?)

               Bingley siblings – a recent transplant into Meryton, the Amish community, from a black-buggy Mennonite church in a different state: reservedly accepted but watched and unestablished in the community hierarchy. Hurst would be the scion of an established, but not-prominent, family in Meryton.

               Darcy – owner of one of the largest, most prosperous farms in Meryton; nephew of the Bishop, son of a former church elder and in training for that future role. His cousins are likewise in training with their own thriving business/farms. His Aunt Catherine would be one of the dominant women in the church (and yes, they do exist), and his expected marriage to his cousin Anne would be 100% accepted in that culture. (In fact, since they marry so young, he could already be a widower – adding another layer of drama.)

As you can see, it almost writes itself. So, why don’t you, Cherith? It sounds interesting, I hear my dear readers asking. I am unsure how Amish-romance readers would enjoy my version of such a story, because I will not romanticise the Amish church. The lifestyle – the simplicity, the lack of technology, the agrarianism, the quiet – that part I loved. But the religion itself with its pick-and-choose rules, judgementalism, passive-aggression – that was traumatic, and I will not celebrate it.

My second dd – when first urged to write an Amish/JAFF story a decade ago – suggested I could write the story, revealing some of the problematic aspects of the Amish church. And I thought about it, quite a bit in fact; but I kept tripping over my strongest tenet as a writer:

I will not write a story that cannot have a HEA, even after the last page is turned.

And in no iteration I have imagined, can I picture ODAmishB and ODEnglishG truly having a HEA. No independent, feisty Lizzy would be happy joining her William in the Amish church – where she would be forced to sublimate everything about her that makes her ‘as delightful a character who ever appeared in print’ (to quote Jane Austen regarding Elizabeth Bennet). Lizzy would be miserable within a season, entirely cut off from her friends, her family, and all that is familiar, and her choices would be to leave the man she loves or become but a shadow of her true self – I know, I lived it!

And an Amish man, that steeped in the church and its doctrines – which there is no way he could not be – would be miserable within a year even with small-town, English life. His wife working would be an assault to his masculinity, to his self-worth, to everything he was taught regarding his own eternal soul. In addition, success and wealth in an Amish community does not immediately translate to English life. Once he leaves the church, and the automatic market of those eager to purchase anything Amish-built, or Amish-made, or Amish-grown, ODB will suddenly face aspects of business – competition, building his brand, taxes, even the internet and computers – with which he has no experience.

I apologise if I am disappointing anyone who hoped to read an Amish JAFF story – it will not come from me.

HOWEVER, our years with the Amish likely did more for me as a writer of Regency stories than all the nerd research has ever done. I would like to share with you, my dear readers, in future blogs, some of the ways I can understand life in early 1800’s Georgian England as a direct result of my time in the Amish community.

Until then, Godspeed to you all!