Mary and Joseph's marriage....

[Nec5]

Yeah, this also gets into the weeds because God sent an actual Angel to speak with Mary, and if I recall correctly Joseph too(?), and sort of seal the marriage. That makes this a pretty special case.

[VeritasLuxMea]

Originally Posted by 1ke

And the answer to that question is yes.

The inability to consummate (impotence) is an impediment to valid marriage. A couple may choose not to consummate by mutual consent.

Part of the rite reads:

"Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?"

To which each party must answer in the affirmative.

Now unless I'm missing something, the rite clearly indicates that when entering into a marriage, both husband and wife MUST be open to life. And to be open to life one MUST have sex, correct? Therefore, one MUST be open to having sex when entering into a marriage.

You may be right that they can decide not to consummate the marriage after the fact, but the marriage is clearly invalid if (as proposed by many here) Mary and Joseph were NOT open to life when they were married.

My first thought whenever this question comes up, and it comes up often, is WHY does this matter? Mary and Joseph were not Catholics. They were Jews. Who cares?

I do not understand how, as a Catholic, you can write off Jewish tradition so easily. The prophets were Jews. Jesus was a Jew. We have received the ten commandments and much of our tradition from the Jews. The Jews were God's chosen people.

Therefore, I do not see how it is irrelevant and frankly, I would find it rather odd if God's view of marriage has changed so much since the time of the Jews. Please note that if the alleged views are correct that this is not a minor change at all. We are talking about open to life vs. not open to life. Big difference.

Who cares if it was valid or not? It has NO bearing at all on the sacrament of marriage or Church teaching.

They are the mother and the father of our Lord and a model for all Christian couples.

The purpose of their marriage was unique in all of history: guardianship of the Christ child. They entered into a legal arrangement for that guardianship.

How do you figure? Were they not married before God impregnated Mary? That would mean they retroactively entered into that arrangement, which needless to say makes no sense.

[1ke]

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

Part of the rite reads:

"Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?"

To which each party must answer in the affirmative.

Now unless I'm missing something, the rite clearly indicates that when entering into a marriage, both husband and wife MUST be open to life. And to be open to life one MUST have sex, correct? Therefore, one MUST be open to having sex when entering into a marriage..

One must be *able* to have intercourse. One need not exercise the right to the marital debt by mutual consent, for a time or indefinitely.

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

You may be right that they can decide not to consummate the marriage after the fact, but the marriage is clearly invalid if (as proposed by many here) Mary and Joseph were NOT open to life when they were married.

No, not at all.

Again, one must be able to have intercourse. And, one must be willing to have intercourse should either spouse ask to assume conjugal relations. One does not have to exercise that right. Each act of intercourse, if the couple chooses to engage in it, must be per se ordered to unity and procreation. There is no invalidity issue here.

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

We are talking about open to life vs. not open to life.

No we aren't.

You are misunderstanding "open to life" vis-a-vis sexual faculties.

[tee_eff_em]

[Reiterating that Mary and Joseph were not bound by Catholic law which they pre-dated, but entertaining the questions anyway]
[NB: I cannot speak intelligently about Jewish marriage customs of biblical nor any other times]

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

Part of the rite reads:

"Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?"

To which each party must answer in the affirmative.

Did Mary and Joseph not accept lovingly the child sent them from God?

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

Now unless I'm missing something, the rite clearly indicates that when entering into a marriage, both husband and wife MUST be open to life. And to be open to life one MUST have sex, correct? Therefore, one MUST be open to having sex when entering into a marriage.

So while I am not having sex with my bride (which is: most of the time), I am not being open to life? I believe the highlighted premise is mistaken.

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

You may be right that they can decide not to consummate the marriage after the fact, but the marriage is clearly invalid if (as proposed by many here) Mary and Joseph were NOT open to life when they were married.

I am not sure anyone except you has proposed this?

tee

[gus]

Catholics view Mary as the new Arc of the Covenent and she was the vessel that bore The Christ.

A Jewish man penality for touching the Arc was Death.
Joseph was a devout Jew.
take of modern blinders when thinking about this.

[Slinger]

Originally Posted by 1ke

The purpose of their marriage was unique in all of history: guardianship of the Christ child. They entered into a legal arrangement for that guardianship.

This cannot be true as Joseph and Mary were already betrothed (Jewish custom at the time would consider them married even if not consummated) prior to Mary learning she was to be the mother to Jesus.

[28562]

Originally Posted by gus

Catholics view Mary as the new Arc of the Covenent and she was the vessel that bore The Christ.

A Jewish man penality for touching the Arc was Death.
Joseph was a devout Jew.
take of modern blinders when thinking about this.

So he never hugged or kissed her? Or held her hand during childbirth? They never came in physical contact?

What about anyone who consoled her when Jesus was being crucified?

[VeritasLuxMea]

Originally Posted by tee_eff_em

I am not sure anyone except you has proposed this?

tee

Yep, everyone who has said Mary was a consecrated virgin has suggested this by default.

I would really like to know how common it was for consecrated virgins to marry. Consider me skeptical.

[twoangels]

Originally Posted by 28562

So this is the kind of wierd thoughts you get when you are on night shift and don't get off until 3am...someone answer this please.

A marriage is not considered valid by the Catholic Church unless consummated, right?
Mary was ever virgin, right?

Incorrect.
"Catholic theology teaches that a validly-contracted marriage is accompanied by divine ratification, creating a virtually indissoluble union until the couple consummate, after which the marriage is completely indissoluble. An unconsummated marriage can be dissolved by the Pope, as Vicar of Christ. Once the marriage is consummated, only a separation is possible; the marriage bond cannot be dissolved."

It should be noted that when the annuncation took place, Mary was Joseph's betrothed wife. This means that they were married. Jewish customs at that time had two ceremonies. Man and wife would exchange matrimonial consent approx a year prior to moving in together and consumating their marriage. This is why when Joseph found out Mary was pregnant, he considered divorcing her in secret. If they were not married, he wouldn't have considered divorced. And as we see from Catholic theology, while it is difficult to dissolve a non-consumated marriage, it is possible.

"Historically betrothal in Catholicism was a formal contract considered as binding as marriage, and a divorce was necessary to terminate a betrothal.[7] Betrothed couples were regarded legally as husband and wife - even before their wedding and physical union. The concept of an official engagement period in Western European culture may have begun in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, headed by Pope Innocent III, which decreed that "marriages are to be ... announced publicly in the churches by the priests during a suitable and fixed time, so that if legitimate impediments exist, they may be made known."[8][9] Such a formal church announcement of the intent to marry is known as banns. "

So our Church basically changed the traditions and restricted us from exchanging matrimonial consent. This artificially created the engagement period.

It gets confusing because there also eventually existed a trend for parents to sign contracts with each other to "betroth" their young children to each other. These obviously would not involve matrimonial consent, so this is likely the reason we associate betrothal with engagement.

So the reality is that Mary and Joseph were a married couple when Mary conceived Jesus. Once she moved in with Jesus, while they had conjugal rights, they did not practice them. The most ancient traditions regarding the nature of Mary and Joseph's portrays Joseph as an older widow who married Mary in order to more of take custody of her as society did not provide opportunities (aside from prostitution) for a woman to economically support themselves. That is why there is such an emphasis from Christ to take care of the widow. If I widow had no sons, she was doomed to a life of immense poverty and may resort to prostitution to keep herself alive.

As such, Mary's question over how she could possibly become pregnant when she has not been with a man, points more to her perpetual virginity because as she was betrothed to Joseph, without such a commitment, she should have expected to conceive after the betrothal period of a year was completed. After all, when Abraham was told several times that he'd conceive a son through Sarah, it was many years before she actually conceived. In fact, it was so long that they fell into such despair that Sarah offered her servant Hagar to sleep with her husband so that Hagar's son would be considered theirs. You then still have time for Hagar to conceive, for gestation, birth and it does seem that it was still years after that before Sarah conceived. If Mary knew it had taken Sarah years, why would Mary wonder how it'd be possible for her to conceive?

[twoangels]

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

So then it was common for consecrated virgins to get married? I've never heard of such a thing, I'm surprised.

The protoevangelium of James is where we get the story that she was involved with some young girls who were dedicated to the temple. Typically some offering was made, but Mary was unique in that she made a vow of virginity which was unheard of. The community was concerned about this vow because there was no social structure to care for her when her time serving in the temple was completed. It also seems there was some concern that she would not be able to keep the vow and they did not want the scandal of risking keeping her at the temple as a pregnant woman. As such, Joseph was chosen to marry Mary in order to act as her guardian.
]

[tee_eff_em]

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

Yep, everyone who has said Mary was a consecrated virgin has suggested this by default.

I would really like to know how common it was for consecrated virgins to marry. Consider me skeptical.

That is a question I do not know the answer to. But it is also a position I neither assert nor deny.


However (mea culpa) I was not specific about my doubt. When I said I did not think anyone else had proposed it, I meant this part:

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

You may be right that they can decide not to consummate the marriage after the fact, but the marriage is clearly invalid if (as proposed by many here) Mary and Joseph were NOT open to life when they were married.

To reiterate my position plainly: In my estimation, you merely assert, but neither demonstrate nor support, that a virgin (consecrated or otherwise) is necessarily NOT open to life.

tee

[twoangels]

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

Part of the rite reads:

"Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?"

To which each party must answer in the affirmative.

Now unless I'm missing something, the rite clearly indicates that when entering into a marriage, both husband and wife MUST be open to life. And to be open to life one MUST have sex, correct? Therefore, one MUST be open to having sex when entering into a marriage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_marriage
The Church has a tradition of spiritual/josephite marriages. These are typically discouraged because it is difficult to live up to. Typically they occur today when people are working missions in a co-ed environment. The society can assume that the man and woman are sleeping together even though they're not. Thus to avoid scandal, they enter a spiritual marriage. The couple has the right at any time to consumate their marriage. They do not have to go through a special ceremony to make it morally ok for them to consumate the marriage.

My husband though says that historically in practice there were a number of historical figures who would claim to enter Josephite marriage to show off their piety when in fact they had consumated their marriages. I have no idea what era this occured in. I suppose you can question what happened when people got pregnant. Wouldn't the woman's baby bump show that they had consumated their marriage? I suspect it may have been during the same time period where appearing to have a baby bump was a part of ladies fashion. The baby bump was considered so attractive on a woman that women's dresses often had layers of cloth over her stomach region to make her appear to have a small baby bump. Convinently, if she actually were pregnant, she could just remove the stuffing and no one would know the difference.

[1ke]

Originally Posted by Slinger

This cannot be true as Joseph and Mary were already betrothed (Jewish custom at the time would consider them married even if not consummated) prior to Mary learning she was to be the mother to Jesus.

Certainly it can be true. Joseph planned to put her away before their marriage due to her pregnancy.

The angel told him to take he into his household, that she was to bear the Messiah, and he did so. Their marriage was for the guardianship of the child.