Speak of the devil and he shall appear! Last week I wrote a hindsight opinion on Josh Duggar's, disgraced golden boy and eldest of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's "19 Kids and Counting" brood, recently publicized child molestation acts committed in his teens. The 27 year old father of four, three at the time, said in a statement to People that he acted "acted inexcusably" twelve years ago, in reference to his acts of sexual abuse against five girls younger than him, at lease two of whom were his sisters. When news broke on these incidents in late May, Duggar's wife, Anna, was by his side from the beginning, supporting her husband of nearly seven years with her own statements about his childhood mistake.
That is not the case the second time around.
This past week, Josh Duggar made headlines again with yet another sexually fueled scandal, and this time it's not a teenage mistake. Among the names listed from the Ashley Madison, essentially match.com for people wanting an extra-marital affair, hack was of course former traditional family values lobbyist Josh Duggar. And Anna is still silent.
This man who serenaded his bride during their wedding with "The Loyalty Song", who has actively and openly pushed traditional Christian values on the masses, who committed to living a fundamentalist Christian life, who speaks out against abortion and gay marriage every five minutes like it's his life calling, paid thousands of dollars to cheat on his ideal submissive, Fundamentalist Christian wife.
What? These people don't even kiss before their wedding day, and now he is having affairs and is addicted to porn? How do you stray that far from your chosen path?
You want to know what the members of the Duggars' inner circle will imply? That it is all Anna's fault.
She wasn't submissive enough. She wasn't helpful enough. She didn't counsel him well enough. She didn't see the pressure he was under and alleviate some of it enough. She didn't take care of his "needs" enough. She wasn't enough.
He cheats, he screws up, he sins, but she isn't enough.
That is the basis of Fundamentalist Christianity, women have no power but all the responsibility. And that is screwed up folks, on about 7 million different levels.
I hope and pray Anna Duggar will realize that staying in that family and lifestyle where she will never be enough, where her daughters will never be enough, is not enough. I wish she would pack up and leave and never look back and ride off with those precious babies into the sunset.
But she won't.
Where is there to run to when your entire family believes this way? What kind of future is there for a woman with four small children and no applicable work skills as a result of being raised in those beliefs? Where would they go? How would they live?
They wouldn't.
Women raised in this culture define themselves by men. They need men to survive, to provide for them. They know no other way of life.
And yet Anna Duggar still hasn't released a statement on this latest scandal and betrayal. She hasn't stood by her husband to state her public forgiveness. She has yet to lessen herself and her worth by taking responsibility for her man's mistakes. She has yet to conform to her Fundamental raising by protecting Josh. And that gives me hope for them all.
