Jessa Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame has entered into a courtship with a young man, as has her sister Jill Duggar. Jessa has been involved with Ben Seewald for a while now. Sister Jill has just begun a courtship with Derick Dillard, a young man who worked alongside dad Jim Bob Duggar on a mission project in Nepal.

Jill and Derick were introduced online and essentially got to know each other that way. Once the two met in person they felt they had already fostered a close relationship with one another.

“We got to know each other in the first few months pretty quickly. I was in love with someone I had never met in person, but we really knew each other well,” she said during a recent interview. ”I was really impressed with his character and I was surprised how much we have the same vision and life goals.”

Jessa Duggar and her courtship with Ben Seewald was the highlight of the first episode in the new season of 19 Kids and Counting on Tuesday. Fans are expecting that next season–or perhaps even later in this season–that there might be a similar episode featuring Jill and Derick.

The Duggar family has an interesting take on relationships between their children and prospective courting partners. They don’t call the ages old ritual ‘dating’ because they believe that insinuates a very lax coming together of two young people. They prefer ‘courtship’ instead, as they believe that is the conscious seeking of a life partner–one with similar religious beliefs and life goals.

Jessa Duggar and her sisters don’t kiss their boyfriends or hold hands with them. Their parents have raised them to believe that that sort of intimacy is best preserved for marriage. Instead they are allowed to hug their boyfriends in greeting them or saying goodbye, or when they are posing for a picture. There is always a chaperone present. Even when they go out for a meal or a cup of coffee they bring a couple of the younger siblings along so they are never alone together.

Jessa and Jill Duggar, along with a couple of their sisters, often give talks throughout the year to groups of young women and girls about courtship and dating.

Life is certainly unusual in the 19 Kids and Counting household–at least according to most of society’s standards, but before people poke fun they should look at the longevity of the relationship between Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, as well as the fact that their kids have stayed rather close to home even after they reach legal age and despite their family’s seemingly rigid rules.

What do you think of the notion of courtship versus dating?

Image via YouTube