For the past several weeks, the majority of Duggar coverage has had to do with Josh Duggar’s arrest on child pornography charges.
That makes sense, of course, as this is the kind of scandal that can, and hopefully will, bring the entire Duggar media empire crashing down.
But because of the sheer size of the family, Josh’s arrest and upcoming trial are not the only Duggar-related news stories of the moment.
And because of the inherent creepiness of the Duggar clan, there’s another developing story having to do with the inappropriate and possibly criminal sexualization of children.
This time, it involves one of Jim Bob and Michelle’s daughters.
Now, it’s no secret that the women of the Duggar clan are raised to believe that marriage and procreation are their primary reasons for being.
Even so, they’re usually permitted to wait until adulthood — albeit very, very early adulthood — to start thinking about marriage.
But these days, Duggar children are getting married earlier and earlier.
Perhaps it’s a result of the Josh scandal, as Jim Bob and Michelle may be in a hurry to marry off their kids before the family goes down in flames.
Whatever the case, Justin Duggar married Claire Spivey earlier this year, shortly after he turned 18.
And now, it’s rumored that his younger sister Johannah Duggar is being courted at the tender age of 15.
Obviously, there’s nothing unusual about a 15-year-old girl dating boys her own age, but that’s not what’s happening with Johannah.
For one, as the Duggars never tire of reminding us, courting is not the same is dating.
It’s “dating with a purpose” — the purpose being marriage and procreation.
Not the kind of thing that’s on the mind of your typical 15-year-old girl.
On top of that Johannah is not romantically involved in with another 15-year-old.
No, if the rumors are to be believed, she’s being courted by a man named Carver, who will soon turn 20.
We don’t know if that’s his first or last name.
He could be a descendant of the inventor and botanist George Washington Carver or the American short story master Raymond Carver.
But what’s far more likely is that Carver is the man’s first name, and he hails from one of the families that Jim Bob has earmarked as being worthy of breeding with his daughters.
The rumors of a Johannah-Carver romance originated on the Duggar-focused corners of Reddit, which are often gold mines for reliable intel on the more secretive aspects of life in the Counting On clan.
“I saw someone on FSU [Fundie Snark Uncensored] talking about how Johannah was supposedly pre-courting some kid named Carver?” one user wrote this week.
As far as we can tell, no one is refuting the claim, but many are outraged at the idea of a child being “courted” by a grown man.
“She’s a child. She should be going to school, not setting up a wedding registry,” one user replied.
Little is known about Johannah, as she was very young when 19 Kids and Counting was canceled in 2015, and she was not among the Duggar kids who were hand-selected to play a central role on Counting On.
(Of course, given the rumors that Jim Bob pocketed his kids earnings from the show, we guess she didn’t miss out on much.)
Johannah is commonly listed among Jim Bob and Michelle’s “favorite kids,” so we guess it’s no surprise that she would seek to fulfill their wishes by getting married at a young age.
But 15 is very young — even by Duggar standards.
All we can do is hope that even if Johannah is courting, some voice of reason in her life will encourage her to wait until she’s at least 18 to get married.
Of course, the ideal outcome is that she’d flee the Duggar compound and make millions writing a tell-all memoir about her experiences as a captive member of this fertility cult — but we know that’s asking a lot.
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