Jill Duggar: Courting Methods, Waiting On Being Married Before Sex, Drives Feminists Nuts, But Who Is Right?

Jill Duggar’s courting methods, and her Biblically based Christian stance on waiting on marriage before sex, is driving some feminists crazy because they believe the conservative viewpoint of the Duggar family will lead to men dominating women and poor marriage relationships. But what do actual studies on the subject say about sex before marriage?

In a related report by The Inquisitr, Jill Duggar met her boyfriend online with the help of father Jim Bob Duggar who was involved every step of the way in the Duggar’s courting process. Just recently Jill met her boyfriend in person for the first time in Nepal.

In the process of dating the Duggar family’s courting rules may some archaic to many Americans. Whereas dating can be somewhat random, the Duggar family believes that courtship includes “waiting for the one God has for you and praying through the whole process.” As part of this process any young man must ask permission in order to date one of the Duggar girls. All courtship activities are monitored, from physical contact to phone and text conversations. For example, Jessa Duggar claims she plans on reserving her first kiss until after marriage.

These ideals have some people upset. For example, according to Liberty Voice Jessica Duggar has been “brainwashed” into following her family’s lead:

“In extremist households like the Duggar’s the men often take it upon themselves to control the women’s sexuality and how that sexuality is allowed to be expressed. Duggar will not be allowed to kiss Dillard until their wedding day because she has been brainwashed by her fundamentalist Christian parents to think of sex as unnatural outside of marriage instead of the normal, natural and healthy expression is in when undertaken in any loving relationship…. According to their rationale, all relationships in which the couple is not married are unfulfilled; an assertion which is not backed by any actual evidence.”

A blog post on Patheosasserts that Jill Duggar’s courting will negatively affect her sexuality even after marriage:

“She knows nothing about her body, perhaps not even the names of her private body parts much less how they function. Sex is a mostly mysterious act that she will learn more about after being safely married, because delving into that beforehand would perhaps tempt her to explore her own body and awaken urges that are supposed to stay asleep until married.”

But studies on the topic would seem to indicate that the Duggar family has the right idea, not their critics. In fact, a study published in 2000 with the NCBI found that higher intelligence in teenagers corresponded to those who waited on sex. One study published in the May 2003 edition of the Journal of Marriage and Family claimed that “substantially higher risk of marital dissolution [divorce] if the woman both had sex with another man and cohabited with him.” A more recent study from 2011 “found that 31 percent of women who had sex for the first time as teens divorced within five years” and the “divorce rate for women who delayed sex until adulthood was far lower,” dropping all the way down to 15 percent.

The critics of Jill Duggar also claim her family’s values will also strangle her sex life, but that’s not what researchers have found to be true. A study published in the Journal of Family Psychology questioned more than 2,000 married couples claimed: “There’s more to a relationship than sex, but we did find that those who waited longer were happier with the sexual aspect of their relationship.” Couples who waited on sex “reported their relationship stability level 22 percent higher than those who did not. Additionally with abstinence the value of relationship satisfaction rose by 20 percent, communication level was up by 12 percent and the sexual quality improved by 15 percent.”

In the end, some criticize the Duggar family’s parents because Jessa and Jill Duggar are both over 18 years old but they submit them to rules that many Americans would limit to teenagers. But in this case the Duggar girls say they have voluntarily submitted themselves to these rules. What do you think about their courting methods?