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When John David Duggar married Abbie Burnett back in November of 2018, the ceremony and reception differed from the usual Duggar nuptial events in a number of important ways.

The most obvious departure, of course, was the age of the participants.

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John David is 29; Abbie is 27.

That’s certainly not an unusually old age at which to get married — unless you’re a Duggar.

You see, the Duggars are taught from a young age that their primary objective in life is to marry young and make a whole lot of babies.

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The family belongs to the Quiverfull movement, subsect of evangelicals who believe that it’s every Christians duty to birth as many believers as possible in order to shape governmental policy, create communities, and essentially overwhelm the Earth.

By waiting until his (very) late twenties in order to tie the knot, John David cost himself a solid decade’s worth of procreation years.

(It’s not uncommon for Duggars to start families while still in their teens.)

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Of course, John David is not alone in his decision to take much, much longer than his siblings in his search for love.

John’s twin, Jana Duggar, is still single, and looks like she’ll remain that way as she centers her thirties.

Jana and John David have broken with custom in a big way in their decision not to enter the "courtship" process in their teens or early twenties.

And some fans think it’s no coincidence that the famously close twins both made the choice to wait.

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It’s widely believed that some Duggar kids marry the first person to come along simply because they know that’s what’s expected of them.

Many of the fans who subscribe to that theory also believe that John David and Jana made a pact at a young age — no matter what happened, they would only marry if they actually fell in love.

That brings us back to John David and Abbie Burnett’s wedding.

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Many noted that it was a much livelier affair than the typical Duggar ceremony, complete with airplane theme to celebrate John David’s love of aviation.

John David and Abbie celebrated five months together last week, and they marked the occasion by paying loving tribute to one another on social media.

They continue to commemorate their romance by posting loving selfies on their shared Instagram page on an almost-daily basis.

What we’re saying is, John David and Abbie appear to be very much in love.

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We’re not saying, necessarily, that the other married Duggar kids are not in love with their partners, but we are saying it’s quite clear that JD and Abbie are not stuck in some awkward arrangement.

It’s been widely speculated that Jana is resentful of her brother’s marriage because she’s now alone as the oldest unmarried Duggar.

But we can imagine a scenario in which she looks at her brother’s happiness as a sign of hope and an indication that she made the right call by refusing to settle.