What’s With the Duggars and Their Hatred of Shoes?

When the Duggars had their first wedding special (we're not counting Josh Duggar because well, he doesn't exist to us), Jill Duggar made a weird revelation: that she wasn't going to wear shoes on her wedding day. "I am choosing to go barefoot at the wedding," she said on an episode of 19 Kids and Counting. "I’m not one to wear heels anyway, plus I like the height difference between me and Derick [Dillard]. So yeah, I won’t be wearing shoes." Wait, huh? A year later, Jessa Duggar did the same thing and went completely barefoot to her wedding rehearsal. Does the whole family have something against shoes or something?

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The Duggars aren't shy about admitting that they are from Arkansas and sometimes they just don't feel like wearing shoes. We've watched as they rode horses, hiked through jungles, and even walked the Great Wall of China in nothing but flimsy flip-flops. It seems the Duggar family just isn't about that "lacing up" life. Joy-Anna Duggar (by far the worst offender when it comes to being barefoot in public) admitted to this on the show. "I'm used to being barefoot," she said. “Shoes in our family have never stayed organized for [more than] a couple of days. We used to have bins with our names on them, and we would put our shoes back in the bins, but that didn’t last very long. Now it’s just a mountain of shoes."

Is the disorganization the reason for the Duggars' lack of footwear, or is there a more insidious reason? Considering Bill Gothard, a close mentor of the Duggars and founder of their ministry, was accused of sexual assault back in 2016 for rubbing minors' feet, some fans think the barefoot habit ties into harmful patriarchal stereotypes. On the flip side, it's also just straight-up weird and pretty unhygienic when you think about it. Below, relive the Duggars' bare feet moments.