Jinger Duggar’s Dad, Jim Bob Duggar, Frets Over Her Front Hug With Jeremy Vuolo On ‘Counting On’

Jinger Duggar’s family celebrated her engagement to Texas preacher Jeremy Vuolo during the most recent episode of Counting On, and all Jim Bob Duggar could think about was which body parts Jinger and Jeremy bumped together after Jeremy popped the question on a New York rooftop.

As the Hollywood Gossip reports, Jim Bob wasn’t chaperoning 22-year-old Jinger Duggar and 29-year-old Jeremy Vuolo when they spent a few days together in the big city, so the super-strict Duggar family patriarch couldn’t monitor the emotional moment Jeremy popped the question. However, Michelle Duggar was present when Jeremy put a ring on it, so she saw all the couple’s celebratory PDA.

When Jinger and her chaperones arrived back home in Arkansas, they were welcomed by a flood of Duggars eager to see Jinger’s ring and congratulate her on her engagement. However, Jim Bob Duggar had something else on his mind. As soon as he got a chance, he pulled his wife aside and interrogated her about the amount of physical contact there was between Jinger and Jeremy during the proposal.

“They needed some chaperoning. How did you do?” Jim Bob asked Michelle.

“Well, it’s kind of hard to keep two magnets apart,” Michelle responded.

This answer didn’t satisfy Jim Bob, who wanted specifics about how his daughter and her fiance touched each other’s bodies while celebrating their engagement.

“Was it more than a side hug?” Jim Bob asked.

As most Duggar fans know, Jim Bob is so afraid of normal hugs causing impure thoughts and feelings that he only allows his kids to side hug each other.

Luckily for Jinger, Michelle tried to save her daughter from having an awkward talk with Jim Bob by refusing to describe exactly what went down on that rooftop. This included a full-on front hug and a few moments where Jinger and Jeremy looked like they were getting dangerously close to kissing.

“Well, there were a few moments I think she was totally caught off-guard,” Michelle said.

The Duggar daughters insist that they get to make their own courtship rules, which usually include chaperoned dates, no hand-holding before getting engaged, and no front hugs or kissing until marriage. However, Jim Bob clearly has his own ideas about how his daughters should behave before he transfers his authority over them to their husbands.

Fans of the Duggar family have also come to expect the Duggar girls to act a certain way when they’re in relationships. As Fox News reports, this is why 19 Kids and Counting viewers were shocked when Jessa Duggar front-hugged Ben Seewald right after he proposed to her. Fans were also surprised that Jessa and Ben were allowed to hold hands the day before Ben popped the question. Michelle Duggar actually tried to stop the courting couple from locking fingers during a prayer session, but Jim Bob decided that the physical contact was acceptable because it was for their purpose of praying.

Jinger Duggar and Jeremy Vuolo managed to abstain from hand-holding before they got engaged, but they found another way to touch whenever they were together — they spent much of their courtship with their arms around one another. Jinger and Jeremy could argue that all that physical contact was just one really long side hug. However, as People reports, Jessa and Ben closed this courtship loophole when they were dating by restricting their side hugs to 30 seconds or less. They also decided that they should only hug when greeting one another or saying goodbye.

Jinger Duggar might show more physical affection for her future husband than her sisters did for theirs back when they were courting, but she claims that she isn’t going to give in to the temptation to lock lips with Jeremy Vuolo before their wedding day.

“Now that Jeremy and I are engaged, we’re planning to hold hands, but I think we’re still going to save our first kiss for the wedding day,” she told the Counting On cameras.

However, as the International Business Times reports, Jinger Duggar previously said she thinks that courtship guidelines should be a “general idea,” not “all listed as a set of rules.” In other words, it’s not like God has engraved the Duggar courtship commandments on stone tablets, so there’s always the possibility that she and Jeremy Vuolo will change their mind about saving that first kiss for their TLC wedding special.

[Featured Image by TLC/YouTube]