How did Mary prove her virginity?

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Since lying is intrinsically evil according to the Church, and Mary was a perpetual virgin, how did she and St. Joseph present the tokens of virginity? How did she prove it?
 
From my understanding, the only time “tokens of virginity” were displayed was when the husband or his family questioned the bride’s virginity. Joseph was well aware of her perpetual virginity and would not have questioned.

Read the verses prior:

If a man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, comes to dislike her,and accuses her of misconduct and slanders her by saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her I did not find evidence of her virginity,” the father and mother of the young woman shall take the evidence of her virginity and bring it to the elders at the city gate.

There the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man in marriage, but he has come to dislike her, and now accuses her of misconduct, saying: ‘I did not find evidence of your daughter’s virginity.’ But here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity!” And they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the city.

Then these city elders shall take the man and discipline him, and fine him one hundred silver shekels, which they shall give to the young woman’s father, because the man slandered a virgin in Israel. She shall remain his wife, and he may not divorce her as long as he lives.
 
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Why do you think Mary needed to prove her virginity to anyone? And how do you think anyone can prove their virginity?
 
See YouTube lecture "
Mary 18 - Christmastime Horrors" first few minutes to see my problem

I am starting to study in detail and listen to lectures on the cultural background of the bible, and it seems to be part of the marriage ceremonh. The lecturer says they must have lied, which makes sense, but I believe lying is intrinsically evil so I’m trying to work my head around how it must not be a lie. I might just have to reserve judgement and say it is unknown

The teacher in the vid cites the context group of scholars, those are the guys I am looking at for studying the literal level of scripture, to make sure I am not misreading. They prove their positions well and are trustworthy, it’s just this bit I am unsure of
 
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I would prefer if you could tell me rather than watching a youtube lecture. How do you prove virginity?
 
Basically he says that as art of the marriage ceremony there would have been presented a bloody sheet to prove she was a virgin before the people of the ceremony (basically the whole village, who already knew she was pregnant early). This was proof to them, and I don’t know if presenting a fake thing would count as a sin for them
 
Most people don’t bleed the first time they have sex (and you can bleed even if it’s not your first time), so a bloody sheet doesn’t prove a thing. I don’t know if Joseph or Mary did/had to show a sheet though.
 
Well, whatever the circumstances were, we know that Our Lady neither lied nor cooperated with a lie. Other than that, we don’t know and presumably do not need to know.
 
tuffsmurf said:
I would prefer if you could tell me rather than watching a youtube lecture. How do you prove virginity?
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Ancient ways of “proving” virginity might involve blood on the sheets of the marriage bed or an examination by someone akin to a midwife. I imagine in the case of the law being cited the token may be the sheets. But I also may be grossly uneducated regarding first century near east practices.

All that said… These customs weren’t always followed to the letter. Also, Joseph and Mary were technically married but would (assuming traditional practices of the time) have been in a period of abstaining from relations for a full year before consummating the marriage. This was the “betrothal” period. So even though they were married the official wedding night hadn’t happened yet anyway.

Mary ended up pregnant before that day. Joseph accepted the child as his and never challenged it.

And all that is not even considering the tradition that Joseph married Mary knowing she had taken vows to perpetual virginity and never intended to consummate the marriage anyway.

Edit: I realize I’m speaking of the Incarnation in a very offhand way. It is one of the most profound events in all of history, and I apologize for my tone here being so casual. I ask forgiveness for not rephrasing it. It is a pain to do it by phone.
 
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Yeah, I know about those ways to “prove” virginity, but as I said, in reality it is not possible to prove or disprove virginity. So these ways are basically myths.
 
tuffsmurf said:
Yeah, I know about those ways to “prove” virginity, but as I said, in reality it is not possible to prove or disprove virginity. So these ways are basically myths.
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Accuracy of the “proof” has little to do with the OP’s question, which is more along the lines of what actually happened, what the expectations were, and whether any lying was involved.
 
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Did you check if they are Catholic? Or trying to teach Catholic Teaching? Because it sounds very suspicious, you know.

Edit: checked - not Catholic.

There are numerous great Catholic apologetics, teachers, theologians, why don’t you try to learn from them?
 
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StJosephPrayForUs said:
Since lying is intrinsically evil according to the Church, and Mary was a perpetual virgin, how did she and St. Joseph present the tokens of virginity? How did she prove it?
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Just out of curiosity, who do you think you had to prove it to? After all, Our Lord said, “I say to you…whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matt. 5:32) Well, people were doing that. King Herod obviously did that, since he married his brother’s wife while his brother was still living. Obviously, proving virginity was not required to marry. That was something the groom or his family could decide to require or not to require.
 
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It seems it was less of a proving it to someone and more just a keeping up appearances, since Mary was known to be pregnant early by others in the village, but Joseph and Mary seem to have pretended like that didn’t happen and may have directly lied about it publicly for honor reasons (even though it was known to be a lie). Whether or not pretending like everything was fine before others and lying is the key thing. The groom and family but seems that it is claimed that presenting this sheet was just a standard for the marriage ceremony or they made up one as people were expected to have it, idk if that’s a sin or not. But I’ll look it up more to see if that was a standard
 
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StJosephPrayForUs said:
It seems it was less of a proving it to someone and more just a keeping up appearances, since Mary was known to be pregnant early by others in the village, but Joseph and Mary seem to have pretended like that didn’t happen and may have directly lied about it publicly for honor reasons (even though it was known to be a lie). Whether or not pretending like everything was fine before others and lying is the key thing. The groom and family but seems that it is claimed that presenting this sheet was just a standard for the marriage ceremony or they made up one as people were expected to have it, idk if that’s a sin or not.
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There was no sheet because there was no such wedding night where they’d have been expected to sleep together. Mary conceived before that happened outside of any official ceremonial night.

And people might simply not have think it appropriate to ask if they had conjugal relations if Joseph never questioned it. This wasn’t the modern day. What questions they did get they could likely have given answers without lying, just being adamant that is it their child (without addressing biology). Or just kept quiet despite rumors if there were any.

I mean, we don’t know what they were asked. It just does not seem anyway necessary to assume they lied.
 
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Mainly is understNdiing the culture better, few scholars and few apologist do that, and instead use anachronistic readings to prove the faith, problems with this are numerous. But then fully going the cultural anthropology way runs into these problems, since the church is claiming a universal and eternal morality. If lying could be absolutely wrong NOW and not ALWAYS it would be easier
 
@StJosephPrayForUs
St. Jerome wrote The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary as apology to Helvidius who claimed that Mary wasn’t Virgin after Jesus’s birth. Which is close to problem you seem to have. Those questions were there since beggining of Church.

Read it, I hope it helps.
 
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This is true, I guess it is lost to history, although we must confess that Mary is sinless. I guess this is what it means for us to not only rely on scripture, but also magisterial and tradition
 
Recall that the Holy Family was moving around a bit - which complicates things.

The shame presumably would have fallen on Joseph… who would have been regarded as a man who could not control his passions (having taken a bride, likely not for natural reasons anyway - see Protoevangelion of James)… What a cross! Remember, Nazareth thought Jesus was the son of Joseph… In a town that small, especially in the Ancient Near East, everyone would have remembered that Mary got pregnant when she did, and that Joseph would have been to blame (the natural assumption). If he had sent her away, he could have avoided the shame for everyone, including Mary, who might have also been regarded as a temptress by the Nazarenes… yet another cross!
 
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StJosephPrayForUs said:
Since lying is intrinsically evil according to the Church, and Mary was a perpetual virgin, how did she and St. Joseph present the tokens of virginity? How did she prove it?
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She didn’t prove it. The Angel came to St. Joseph and after that moment, St. Joseph believed both the Blessed Mother & the Angel.
 
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