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So, Joseph took Mary as his wife but they weren’t really “married” until after Jesus birth when he actually had sexual relations with her?

(Or, if you are Catholic, they were presumably NEVER married.)

So, Joseph took Mary as his wife but they weren’t really “married” until after Jesus birth when he actually had sexual relations with her?

(Or, if you are Catholic, they were presumably NEVER married.)

As they say, good sir, it is the exception that proves the rule.

What St. Joseph had with the Virgin Mary has been fittingly termed a "Josephite Marriage," one in which there was no consummation but in which it was understood from the start that this would be the case. Yet it was still a union between one man and one woman, it involved the subordination of the female party to the male and it was centered around the rearing of a child.

It is true that non-consummation does not make a marriage void ab initio, but only if one party files suit to claim it. (Incest, on the other hand, makes a marriage null regardless of the will of either party.) Nevertheless, in civil law (and even in ecclesiastical law, though this latter also includes provisions specifically befitting a Christian home), *all* potential grounds for annulling a marriage have to do with the integrity of the family structure in terms of rearing and building patrimonial worth for the next generation, and of the good faith of both parties in building this up.

The availability of divorce and contraceptives has obscured the essential structure of marriage but not changed it per se. Equality of the spouses has been a more ominous change, since it is a step away from the melding of two persons into one household. "Gay marriage" will destroy the essence altogether: while adoption is hypothetically possible for gay couples, one cannot underestimate the symbolic reproductive importance of the male/female union and potential consummative act. Marriage will once and for all cease to be a high-level mating ritual and become at long last an arrangement for shacking up.

For now, I won't speak of the negative effects on man, masculinity and responsibility. I'll only say that if feminists think that situation is less degrading to a woman than subordination to a father or husband, I've got a bridge in London to sell them.

So, Joseph took Mary as his wife but they weren’t really “married” until after Jesus birth when he actually had sexual relations with her?

The marriage wasn't consummated, but they were married. In Catholic doctrine, the marriage is consummated by relations, but even an unconsummated marriage is a true marriage as long as each member of the union agrees to abstain for a spiritual good. If either wants to consummate, the other party must comply or the marriage could be easily annulled. This is called a Josephite Marriage. In Wikipedia, it is under "spiritual marriage" (see below).

A feature of Catholic spiritual marriage, or Josephite marriage, is that the agreement to abstain from sex should be a free mutual decision, rather than resulting from impotence or the views of one party.

In senses beyond spiritual marriage, chastity is a key concept of Church doctrine that demands celibacy of priests, monks, nuns and certain other officials in the Church. The doctrine established a "spiritual marriage" of church officials to their church; in order to better serve God, one had to disavow the demands and temptations of traditional marriage. This rule was enforced by Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, whose marriage to Cunigunde of Luxemburg was also a very famous spiritual marriage.

The Blessed Louis and Zélie Martin professed to enter a spiritual marriage, but consummated a year later when directed by their confessor to do so.[1] Of their nine children the five who survived to adulthood all became nuns, including Saint Thérèse de Lisieux.

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So, Joseph took Mary as his wife but they weren’t really “married” until after Jesus birth when he actually had sexual relations with her?

(Or, if you are Catholic, they were presumably NEVER married.)

As they say, good sir, it is the exception that proves the rule.

What St. Joseph had with the Virgin Mary has been fittingly termed a "Josephite Marriage," one in which there was no consummation but in which it was understood from the start that this would be the case. Yet it was still a union between one man and one woman, it involved the subordination of the female party to the male and it was centered around the rearing of a child.

It is true that non-consummation does not make a marriage void ab initio, but only if one party files suit to claim it. (Incest, on the other hand, makes a marriage null regardless of the will of either party.) Nevertheless, in civil law (and even in ecclesiastical law, though this latter also includes provisions specifically befitting a Christian home), *all* potential grounds for annulling a marriage have to do with the integrity of the family structure in terms of rearing and building patrimonial worth for the next generation, and of the good faith of both parties in building this up.

The availability of divorce and contraceptives has obscured the essential structure of marriage but not changed it per se. Equality of the spouses has been a more ominous change, since it is a step away from the melding of two persons into one household. "Gay marriage" will destroy the essence altogether: while adoption is hypothetically possible for gay couples, one cannot underestimate the symbolic reproductive importance of the male/female union and potential consummative act. Marriage will once and for all cease to be a high-level mating ritual and become at long last an arrangement for shacking up.

For now, I won't speak of the negative effects on man, masculinity and responsibility. I'll only say that if feminists think that situation is less degrading to a woman than subordination to a father or husband, I've got a bridge in London to sell them.