New guidelines for the following generation. When Jinger Duggar’s and Jeremy Vuolo’s girls are old enough to date, she might not enforce conventional dating customs.
What’s Counting When Felicity, now 4, and Evangeline, now 2, reach that stage of life, On alum, 29, told out about how she hopes to handle relationships. Before the publication of her new book, Becoming Free Indeed, on Tuesday, January 31, she spoke exclusively to Us Weekly and said, “I think that the Bible is explicit about what purity is before marriage, but as far as the specifics, it’s not hammered down.”
Duggar noted that after she started dating Vuolo, 35, in June 2016, her viewpoint on “purity culture” slightly changed. The daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar had a rigorous, traditional Christian lifestyle throughout her upbringing, which promoted female chastity and modesty.
“We were taught that we cannot go on a date alone. You know, you can’t hold hands or kiss before being married, like, all the restrictions,” she told Us. However, I can’t find that in the Bible.
Jinger and her husband, who got married in November 2016, want their young daughters to have broader perspectives. The former TLC star continued, “I mean, sometimes things are trial and error. At the end of the day, I believe they will develop and mature. Since I don’t believe that’s the only or even the best way to locate a spouse, I don’t think we should ever use the phrase “courtship” with them.
The native of Arkansas challenges some of the lessons she learned as a child in her most recent book. Jinger and her siblings were taught values established by controversial evangelist Bill Gothard while they were raised as devoted, independent Baptists. But as she began her own family, Jinger began to form her own opinions and discovered a fresh approach to enjoying her faith, in part because of Vuolo.
“I had that viewpoint in mind, along with the notion that I would have as many children as God would permit, which would require abstaining from birth control. I believed that was what my future held, Jinger told Us. And even though I’m married and have two lovely daughters, my life is very different from what I had anticipated.
Jinger has been “very supported” as she broadens her horizons by the former soccer player, who is now retired. In her new book, Jinger looked back on the beginning of her relationship with Vuolo and said that he “wasn’t quite sure” that he was The One when they were given the go-ahead to start courting.
The final person to ask my father if he could court me was Jeremy. In almost every regard, he was different from the other guys, she stated. Because I was a Duggar, he didn’t pursue me. He wasn’t a fan of the program, and he had very little familiarity with the close-knit, traditional Christian communities where I had grown up. … For the first time, I was willing to hear another interpretation of the Bible because I trusted Jeremy.
