This may be a bit of a hijack, but is there any commonly accepted reason (among those who believe in Mary’s perpetual virginity) for why she would never have had sex with her husband? I mean, I assume even in Biblical times it would have been highly unusual for a married couple to never have sex, not even on their wedding night. Wouldn’t it?
There are a bunch of reasons suggested, but IMO it reduces to this: 1. Having major hangups about sex is not exclusively a modern thing. 2. “You won’t respect me afterwards” is symptomatic of something: the idea of Mary the Mother of Christ spreading her legs and joyfully welcoming St. Joseph’s erection [and yes, I’m being graphic, but for a reason] leaves the typical Christian just a mite skeeved, even though it describes them obeying the first commandment God ever gave mankind in obedience to His law on when and how to do it. 3. Tradition: If that’s what they thought back then, it must have been for a good reason, so I need to follow suit. 4. “It’s in the Bible, so it has to be true.”
That said, there are several interesting alleged reasons:
- Jesus was the Son of God, Whom He called Father. For Him to have been physically the son of an earthly father harms that relationship.
- Joseph was an older man, who married Mary to give his sons a mother and to give her a home. He didn’t want or need sex; she was personally consecrated to virginity. [This superimposes a Greco-medieval concept of the importance of virginity over the Jewish tradition.]
- The Immaculate Conception. Mary was by direct and special divine intervention conceived without sin, even the taint of original sin that infects the rest of us having been kept from her, so that she would be a pure and pristine vessel for the birth of the Christ. Now, in marriage [or specifically in marital sex] “the two are made one flesh” – and St. Joseph, holy as he was, was nonetheless a sinner. So even though their consummating their marriage would have been completely licit, it would have involved joining her sinless flesh to his sinful flesh, and out of respect for God’s miracle they refrained.
- Would you stick your virile member [if male, and if female, pretend yourself to be male] where God the Incarnate Son was housed and nourished as an unborn baby?
Yes - it’s just a vagina! It’s not lined with gold and french-lace curtains 
But then I am in the camp that believes Joseph and Mary went on to have a full and proper marriage, and have several other children.
Just to throw another variable into the mix, I would argue that Mary was not just entering her childbearing years. Luke 2:36 reads, “Your relative Elizabeth, being also in her old age, has conceived a son…” My reading is that Mary was also past childbearing, and joins the long list of biblical women who conceive after menopause - Sarah, Rebekkah, the mother of Samuel, etc.
(FWIW, it makes sense to me that the other children listed were Joseph’s, because at the cross, Jesus gives her to John to take care of, implying that she has no children of her own to look after her. From there, if Joseph were a widower, marrying to have someone look after his children, would he choose a young girl, or a mature woman?)
She becomes young and beautiful in the tradition because she was the mother of God. Of course she is young and beautiful!
(Luke 1:36)
Kai idou Elisabet he suggenis sou kai aute suneilephen nion en gerei autes kai houtos men hektos estin aute te kaloumene steira.
“And behold Elizabeth, your kinswoman has also conceived a son in her old age and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren.”
The kai (the “also”) goes with “has conceived” not with “old age.”
You’re correct that Elizabeth’s pregnancy is part of a long Biblical tradition but all of those conceptions were still accomplished in the usual manner. Mary was held to be different.
There is no Biblical support for a previous marriage for Joseph and Mark and Matthew plainly identify those names as Jesus’ siblings. In GJohn, the “beloved disciple” (who is never actually identified as John, by the way) is “given” by Jesus to Mary as a “son” but that doesn’t mean that Mary didn’t have other children and it doesn’t alter the fact that Mark and Matthew say she did. The fact is John contradicts the synoptics more explicitly than that in other places so this is, at best, just another contradiction. John is also a very late Gospel and the tradition that Jesus had siblings is attested in all the earliest Christian literature, including Paul. Even Josephus speaks of the execution of “James, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ.”
Since there isn’t anything in any Gospel that says Mary stayed a virgin after the birth of Jesus then I can’t see any reason to dispute the intent of Mark, Paul or Matthew.
Incidentally, Paul, Mark and John don’t even claim a virgin birth for Jesus or show any awareness of that tradition at all.
Poor Joseph. First he gets cuckled by God, and then he can’t even get any with his own wife.
(Yeah, the idea is kinda “icky”, but she was pledged to be married to him, for crying out loud. Of course their first time would be immensely awkward, but I’m pretty sure they had the good sense to lock the doors, if doors in those times had locks.)
What? All this way and no one’s quoted Dogma?
“The nature of God and the Virgin Mary, those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? Well, that’s just plain gullibility.”
One of those doctrines that makes me glad I’m not Catholic. 
Why for the first one, and why not for the second one?
Krishna was incarnated to Devki in a prison cell, and he was the seventh son, after all the other six had their heads smashed on the wall! So obviously she wasn’t a virgin.
All of our incarnations have implied that the parents have sex, the baby is conceived, and then the soul of God enters. Or perhaps it enters at the moment of creation.
How does this “harm” that relationship? And if God told you, “Go forth and prosper”, wouldn’t it be immoral and wrong to consider being chaste in a marriage?
There are different opinions on this subject. and little verifiable facts.
So, off to Great Debates.
DrMatrix - GQ Moderator
Could you translate Matthew 1:25?
http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/versions/1112983640-2383.html#25
I notice some versions say “firstborn son”, and others just “son”. I’ve never got a sense from the actual Biblical texts that Mary was a virgin all her life. It would have been culturally expected that she would please her husband sexually if that is what he desired. Of course Joseph could have voluntarily refrained from having sex with her. However, if that was the case you’d think it would have been remarkable enough to comment on.
The Textus Receptus is slightly different from the Alexandrian text for this verse. The TR says the following:
Kai ouk eginoskenaute eos ou eteken ton nion autes ton prototokon kai ekalesen to onoma autou Iesoun.
“And he did not know her until after she had born her firstborn son and he called his name Jesus.”
The word nion bolded above means “son” and the the word prototokon literally means “firstborn.”
The Alexandrian text is almost exatly the same but it lacks the word prototokon so it just says Mary gave birth to a son.
The Alexandrian text is older and generally regarded as more reliable than the TR (which was compiled from incomplete Greek manuscripts and Erasmus bolstered some of the incomplete parts by retranslating the Vugate back into Greek). The TR is the basis for the KJV and others. The Alexandrian texts are more recently discovered but are from oler and more complete manuscripts. The difference in source manuscripts explains why there is variation in the way verses like Matt. 1:25 are translated in different versions.
Getting back to the subject, it actually appears that the less reliable manuscript says “firstborn son,” while the more reliable just says “son.”
He IS the patron saint of the impotent. For that reason.