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
We can explain this with pretty simple logic.
In ancient Israel, there was no “engagement” like there is today. The bethotal was the legal marriage and then the cermony happened later, once the Jewish home was ready.
Actually, orthodox & conservatives Jews still do this today, however, they do both ceremonies typically on the same day (instead of weeks or months apart).
When Mary visited St. Elizabeth, she was already “legally married.”
When she returned from St. Elizabeth, she was already visibly pregnant. All that was required was St. Joseph to not object to Mary’s situation and claim Jesus as his own.
He could do what without lying.
You will also notice, that NO WHERE in Scripture do the Pharisees or towns folk acknowledged that Jesus is adopted by St. Joseph.
What most likely happened is that most people assumed that Mary and Joseph had sexual relations before she left for Elizabeth, and while they didn’t like it - because St. Joseph didn’t complain, she was not stoned.
There would have been no need for a “token” because she was visibly pregnant when she returned from St. Elizabeth.
The problem with fundamentalists (like in this video) is that they are often too preoccupied with trying to use Scripture against Catholics that they fail to use logic.
