The Hutterites practice traditional gender roles, and women cannot vote or hold colony office. Adolescents become adult members at age fifteen and are eligible for baptism at age twenty. At this age, a Hutterite woman generally leaves her colony to marry a man in another colony, which receives a dowry in exchange. Each house is equipped with an intercom that rings for the three meals and for religious services. They live by strong family values. Children are raised with abundant care and attention and are not left to fend for themselves. Education at home and school is important. Divorce is forbidden, reflecting a belief in and value of the deep work it takes to keep a marriage and family together. Colony members can come and go as they please, this is not a locked compound! The best proof? Carol came to pick me up at the airport and we went shopping before returning to the colony. They visit family members who live in other places, states and countries, and can even formally leave the colony and return without being shunned for life. They have electricity, cars, huge trucks, computer-managed hog operations, internet, and more.

They have computers in their well-equipped schools as well. However, they don’t have TVs in an effort to better preserve communication and exchange amongst colony members. Note that the Hutterites struggle as we all do to use technology for beneficial purposes and to prevent misuse amongst its members. The Hutterites produce a maximum of the goods they need, reuse, recycle, and fix things as much as possible on their own. They produce the vast majority of the food they consume and make products is usually bought, such as clothing, and even beauty products. Medical care is largely free of religious content and physicians are routinely used. Hutterite chiropractors are used by both colony members and outsiders. The Hutterites have been the object of intense study by mental health Researchers and display an unusually high incidence of affective psychoses and low incidence of schizophrenia when compared to other groups and the U.S. population in general.

The Hutterites also display a culture-specific disorder called Anfechtung, characterized by a feeling of having sinned. Treatment is through talk with the preacher, prayer, and confession, usually producing a cure. Often compared to Amish or Mennonites, Hutterites are a communal people belonging to a peace-driven Anabaptist sect that lives by the principle of non-resistance, the practice of not resisting authority even when it is unjust. How Hutterites spend their leisure varies greatly from leut to leut, with some Hutterites shunning almost all forms of sport, while others condone various types of sports. Most Hutterite colonies espouse choral singing for special occasions and many, at least privately, play musical instruments in small groups. Various other leisure activities are available for Hutterite youth. The organizational structure of most colonies is very similar. Each colony is led by a group of leaders, including the minister, the colony manager and the farm manager.