Jinger Duggar Reveals Why She Decided to Start Wearing Pants

Jinger Duggar Vuolo had to really examine her convictions when it came to deciding to add pants to her wardrobe. While the Counting On star’s ultra-conservative Christian upbringing forbid girls and women from wearing anything but skirts and dresses, the 27-year-old shares her own path away from that belief in her new book with husband Jeremy Vuolo, The Hope We Hold: Finding Peace in the Promises of God.

Jinger “never really questioned” mom Michelle Duggar’s teachings about pants growing up, which stemmed from a passage in Deuteronomy 22:5 saying “a woman shall not wear a man’s garment,” but became curious about her own interpretation of the Bible’s teachings as she got older. “Modesty was a huge topic in our house, and we believed that wearing skirts instead of pants was a central part of being modest. But I wanted to discover for myself what the Bible had to say,” the TLC personality wrote, as per PEOPLE.

She began “digging into” the Bible with husband Jeremy as she became “more aware of the different beliefs and doctrines Christians held” and wanted to find out more about why other people interpreted passages from the religious text differently than she and her family did. Studying scripture, listening to sermons and reading commentaries, Jinger began to “reexamine” the framework in which she had been brought up.

“Growing up, I had a set of standards that I took as givens,” she wrote, adding that as she expanded her worldview, her “convictions were changing.” Through her investigations, Jinger said she “realized that biblical modesty is deeper and more profound than wearing skirts instead of pants,” adding, “Modesty isn’t only about what you wear. It’s about the position of your heart.” Furthermore, after searching through the Bible for answers, Jinger said she “never found a passage specifically forbidding women from wearing pants.”

Jeremy admits in the book he was “caught off-guard” when his wife came to him asking about possibly adding pants to her wardrobe, but encouraged her to do her own thinking and follow the scripture. When Jinger did come to a decision, she felt “no inner conflict” beginning to wear pants. She did struggle to make a different choice than what her family’s beliefs would permit, however.

“I knew they deeply cared about their convictions, and I didn’t want to hurt them now that I didn’t share those convictions,” she wrote, adding she “felt emotional as I worried that my parents would think I didn’t appreciate how I was raised.” In the end, Jinger said she decided she had to “walk in truth and follow what I knew the Bible said,” even if it was different than her parents’ beliefs.