Among Duggar fans it’s a favorite topic of discussion:
At 30 years of age, Jana Duggar is single, and it looks like she might be planning to stay that way.
It’s certainly not too late for her to get married and start a family if she so desires.
But the fact that Jana has rejected a number of suitors in favor of staying at home and helping to raise her younger siblings leads us to believe she has no real interest in getting hitched.
And obviously, despite what Jim Bob and Michelle might think, that’s perfectly fine.
But there are drawbacks to being a single woman in the Duggar family.
In addition to being forever looked down-upon by her parents and siblings, Jana has no real freedom of her own.
The Duggars confusingly believe that women are capable of looking after entire armies of children, but incapable of taking care of themselves.
As a result, there’s not much that Jana is allowed to do without male supervision.
It was recently rumored that Jana took an unchaperoned vacation, and fans were quick to applaud Jim Bob’s eldest daughter for her independent streak.
But it remains unclear if Jana was actually unsupervised during the trip.
And even if that was the case, Jana is still watched like a hawk during most of her waking hours.
It seems she’s okay with that, but her fans certainly are not.
The Duggars’ obsession with female fragility was underscored on a recent episode of Counting On, in which Jedediah and Jeremiah Duggar moved into a house of their own, a freedom that would never be afforded to their sisters.
Many fans were irked by the hypocrisy, and a few took to social media to make their voices heard.
“I’m sorry, I genuinely don’t understand why your younger brothers can move out of the family home, but you can’t take a trip with friends unchaperoned,” one fan commented on the above photo of Jana with her brothers.
Jana did not reply, but her brother Jason Duggar siezed the opportunity to stand up for his big sis.
“I’m sorry, I genuinely don’t understand how you think you know about all the trips she takes,” Jason replied.
Obviously, that’s a pretty mild clap back.
But it’s rare that the Duggars respond to negative comments at all, so many were taken aback by the fact that Jason stuck up for his sister at all.
The comment he chose to reply to was not terribly harsh, but Jana takes a surprising amount of flak from hyper-critical Instagram commenters who take issue with just about everything she does.
Clearly, Jason has had enough, and he’s sick of seeing strangers heap abuse on the older sister who helped raise him.
Maybe this is the beginning of a new era in which Duggars stand up for each other in the face of criticism from the public.
More likely, however, this is an isolated incident that reminds us that even the mild-mannered Duggars have their breaking point.