What is Anna Duggar supposed to do?

No one ever taught Anna Duggar to “breathe fire”.

Amid the uproar surrounding Josh Duggar’s admission that he maintained two Ashley Madison accounts, his put-upon wife Anna Duggar announced, stoically, that she’d be standing by her man.

Some may see her choice in light of this second transgression (the first being sexually molesting his younger sisters as a teenager) as a show of wifely loyalty and Christian forgiveness.

Others see it as a decision Anna Duggar, a 27-year-old mother of four young children, had little choice in.

That’s a point one woman, Jessica Krammes Kirkland, made brilliantly when she wrote a Facebook post about the whole debacle that’s gone viral — for good reason.

Kirkland wrote, “I know everybody is laughing about this Josh Duggar story. Oh, a DUGGAR on Ashley Madison, it’s so rich!

I wish more people would talk about Anna.”

The mother of two girls, aged 6 and 2, from Georgia, writes that Anna Duggar was clearly never instilled with a sense of self-worth by the people around her — something she is doing with her own two girls, whom she’s raising “to think they breathe fire”.

In the Quiverfull Christian tradition, Anna Duggar was taught that her purpose in life is to be a good wife and a good mother and prodigious birther of children. She did those things.

“Anna Duggar was crippled by her parents by receiving no education, having no work experience (or life experience, for that matter) and then was shackled to this loser because his family was famous in their religious circle,” writes Kirkman.

She’s right, of course. What is Anna Duggar going to do now? Take her four children away from the powerful Duggar family and be ostracised from her community?

Work at a local retail store or as a waitress? Minimum wage in America is so miniscule that it would hardly be enough to support her alone, let alone her kids.

Kirkman says Anna Duggar has been “utterly, utterly failed” by her parents and must now “lower herself so [her husband] may rise up on her back”.

“She lived up to the standard that men set for her of being chaste and Godly and in return, the man who demanded this of her sought women who were the opposite. ‘Be this,’ they told her. She was. It wasn’t enough.”

A Google search for Anna Duggar brings up this as her only descriptor: “Josh Duggar’s wife”.

Kirkman’s post struck a chord. It’s been shared almost 250,000 times and liked almost 500,000 times.

The treatment of Anna Duggar — a woman viewed as less within a patriarchal religion that values her only for her reproductive ability and then sidelines her by ensuring she’s pregnant for all of her fertile years — would be seen as abusive and abhorrent in a different context.

Here in the West, she’s become a figure of fun.

Duggar made the admission about his adultery via Facebook.

“I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the Internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife.

“I humbly ask for your forgiveness. Please pray for my precious wife Anna and our family during this time.”

Just like with his last shocking revelation, Duggar will be forgiven by his God and his community with a show of contriteness.

Anna Duggar would never recover from the shame of leaving her husband.

“Parents, WE MUST DO BETTER BY OUR DAUGHTERS. Boys, men, are born with power. Girls have to command it for themselves,” Kirkland wrote. “They aren’t given it. They assume it and take it. But you have to teach them to do it, that they can do it. We HAVE to teach our daughters that they are not beholden to men like this.”

“Please, instill your daughters with the resolve to make a man cower if he must. To say ‘I don’t deserve this, and my children don’t deserve this.’ I wish someone had ever, just once, told Anna she was capable of this. That she knew she is. As for my girls, I’ll raise them to think they breathe fire.”

Can I get an AMEN?

Read the full post below.

I know everybody is laughing about this Josh Duggar story. Oh, a DUGGAR on Ashley Madison, it’s so rich! I wish more people would talk about Anna. I normally keep things light on Facebook, but let’s talk about Anna. Let me tell you: Anna Duggar is in the worst position she could possibly be in right now. Anna Duggar was crippled by her parents by receiving no education, having no work experience (or life experience, for that matter) and then was shackled to this loser because his family was famous in their religious circle. Anna Duggar was taught that her sole purpose in life, the most meaningful thing she could do, was to be chaste and proper, a devout wife, and a mother. Anna Duggar did that! Anna Duggar followed the rules that were imposed on her from the get-go and this is what she got in reward- a husband who she found out, in the span of 6 months, not only molested his own sisters, but was unfaithful to her in the most humiliating way possible. While she was fulfilling her “duty” of providing him with four children and raising them. She lived up to the standard that men set for her of being chaste and Godly and in return, the man who demanded this of her sought women who were the opposite. “Be this,” they told her. She was. It wasn’t enough.

What is Anna Duggar supposed to do? She can’t divorce because the religious environment she was brought up would blame her and ostracize her for it. Even if she would risk that, she has no education and no work experience to fall back on, so how does she support her kids? From where could she summon the ability to turn her back on everything she ever held to be sacred and safe? Her beliefs, the very thing she would turn to for comfort in this kind of crisis, are the VERY REASON she is in this predicament in the first place. How can she reconcile this? Her parents have utterly, utterly failed her. Think of this: somewhere, Anna Duggar is sitting in prayer, praying not for the strength to get out and stand on her own, but for the strength to stand by this man she is unfortunately married to. To lower herself so that he may rise up on her back.

As a mother of daughters, this makes me ill. Parents, WE MUST DO BETTER BY OUR DAUGHTERS. Boys, men, are born with power. Girls have to command it for themselves. They aren’t given it. They assume it and take it. But you have to teach them to do it, that they can do it. We HAVE to teach our daughters that they are not beholden to men like this. That they don’t have to marry a man their father deems “acceptable” and then stay married to that man long, long after he proved himself UNACCEPTABLE. Educate them. Empower them. Give them the tools they need to survive, on their own if they must. Josh Duggar should be cowering in fear of Anna Duggar right now. Cowering. He isn’t, but he should be. He should be quaking in fear that the house might fall down around them if he’s in the same room as she. Please, instill your daughters with the resolve to make a man cower if he must. To say “I don’t deserve this, and my children don’t deserve this.” I wish someone had ever, just once, told Anna she was capable of this. That she knew she is. As for my girls, I’ll raise them to think they breathe fire.

Check out the Duggar family album.

More on the Duggars’ debacles?

Josh Duggar’s apology today proves he has his priorities very, very wrong.”

Did Josh Duggar pay Ashley Madison almost $1000 to cheat on his wife?

Josh Duggar is being sued by one of the girls he molested as a teenager.