Married Virgins

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yesukristus

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If I’m not wrong there are many married virgins who became saints in the history of the Church. I recently had a discussion with a friend on this and he said isn’t that kind of against God’s command to go forth & multiply? And has there been any male married virgins who got beatified in the past (can’t be only women right?)?
Also, do you think this option is something people would aspire to nowadays?
 
Who are some of the married virgins?

If one is married, one should NOT remain a virgin, that is not the purpose of marriage. Your friend is right with that that marriage is for the purpose that two become one flesh.
 
St Therese’s parents (who are beatified) were planning on living a celibate life together but changed their mind and had nine kids. Perhaps the fact that they were the parents of one of the Church’s great saints is an argument against marital celibacy… (;
 
adstrinity said:
Who are some of the married virgins?

If one is married, one should NOT remain a virgin, that is not the purpose of marriage. Your friend is right with that that marriage is for the purpose that two become one flesh.
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Ahem, our Blessed Mother was married yet remained a virgin her entire life.

I dont know the saints very well (sadly) so I cant help out too much. Except to say that it was an ancient JEWISH tradition that temple virgins would take a husband to support them, yet remained virgins devoted to service. So it is not explicitly or implicitly against God’s command to go forth and multiply or the “two become one flesh”. If the marriage is a… courtesy… a marriage for propriety, or something like that (hopefully you know what I am getting at) then the marital embrace need not occur, especially if either party entering into what can only be considered a contract (in this case it would not be covenant) had made vows of celibacy to God.

Or at least that is one man’s opinion. .

FSC

P.S. Does the word above, man’s, get an apostrophe there or not? I can never tell… I type it both ways like three times then kind of pick which way I think looks better and leave it. Wish I knew this stuff, but… oh well.
 
\Ahem, our Blessed Mother was married yet remained a virgin her entire life. \

Actually, the Theotokos and St. Joseph were only betrothed, not married.
 
FidesSpesCarita said:
P.S. Does the word above, man’s, get an apostrophe there or not? I can never tell… I type it both ways like three times then kind of pick which way I think looks better and leave it. Wish I knew this stuff, but… oh well.
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I KNOW THIS ONE!! 😃

Yes, there is an apostrophe in Man’s. That is because it is showing ownership. The opinion belongs to man; therefore, an apostrophe belongs there.

Man’s opinion. 😃

(grammar geek, editor, and part time math teacher!)
 
bpbasilphx said:
\Ahem, our Blessed Mother was married yet remained a virgin her entire life. \

Actually, the Theotokos and St. Joseph were only betrothed, not married.
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Considered one and the same in the jewish culture of the time. Betrothal was, for all intents and purposes, married. The two were considered “married” when the man would “take” his wife, bring her to the house he built for her. So they were, in the understanding of the time, married, unless your understanding is that they never resided in the same house.

I have almost no knowledge of the orthodox understanding of the Theotokos or the early life of Christ so please take my posts with a grain or three of salt.

FSC
 
I’m doing research on Catholics view on Mary. Please help me to understand.

In Mathew 13:55
Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?
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How does the church interrupt the brother word? Are they not Jesus’s blood brothers?

These idea as stated in Matthew 27:56, Mark 3:31, and other passages.
 
Capta(name removed by moderator)icard said:
St Therese’s parents (who are beatified) were planning on living a celibate life together but changed their mind and had nine kids. Perhaps the fact that they were the parents of one of the Church’s great saints is an argument against marital celibacy… (;
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They both had previously thought they had a calling to religious life but were denied entrance. After they were married and their priest found out about their plans, he told them that living as virgins was not correct for a married couple. It is NOT proper for a married couple to refrain from the marriage act except during specific times of prayer and fasting that both agree upon and that are limited in duration.
 
FidesSpesCarita said:
Ahem, our Blessed Mother was married yet remained a virgin her entire life.

I dont know the saints very well (sadly) so I cant help out too much. Except to say that it was an ancient JEWISH tradition that temple virgins would take a husband to support them, yet remained virgins devoted to service. So it is not explicitly or implicitly against God’s command to go forth and multiply or the “two become one flesh”. If the marriage is a… courtesy… a marriage for propriety, or something like that (hopefully you know what I am getting at) then the marital embrace need not occur, especially if either party entering into what can only be considered a contract (in this case it would not be covenant) had made vows of celibacy to God.

Or at least that is one man’s opinion. .

FSC

P.S. Does the word above, man’s, get an apostrophe there or not? I can never tell… I type it both ways like three times then kind of pick which way I think looks better and leave it. Wish I knew this stuff, but… oh well.
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Yes, there was a custom that the temple virgins, after their period of service, would marry but remain virgins. A couple of issues there: first and most importantly, this was a special condition, not the case for your average woman. Second, the men they married were usually older widowers who were presumably past the time of bearing children anyway. The marriage fulfilled the double purpose of giving the woman a home to live in and somone to support her, and giving the man someone to care for him in his old age. This is one of the reasons why tradition shows St Joseph as being much older than Our Lady.

This type of marriage is not needed in the church today and is certainly not encouraged. A person who feels called to virginity, but not religious life, can become a consecrated virgin–living in the world, but as an unmarried life-long virgin.
 
yesukristus said:
If I’m not wrong there are many married virgins who became saints in the history of the Church. I recently had a discussion with a friend on this and he said isn’t that kind of against God’s command to go forth & multiply? And has there been any male married virgins who got beatified in the past (can’t be only women right?)?
Also, do you think this option is something people would aspire to nowadays?
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To go forth and multiply was God’s command to create other humans in view of the Incarnation of Christ. To remain a virgin for the sake of the Kingdom is a sign of the Kingdom to come in which there is no giving and taking in marriage. Remind your friend that the Lord Jesus remained a virgin - as did, of course, His mother.
 
FCEGM said:
To go forth and multiply was God’s command to create other humans in view of the Incarnation of Christ. To remain a virgin for the sake of the Kingdom is a sign of the Kingdom to come in which there is no giving and taking in marriage. Remind your friend that the Lord Jesus remained a virgin - as did, of course, His mother.
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People like you are the reason I love this site.
 
FCEGM said:
To go forth and multiply was God’s command to create other humans in view of the Incarnation of Christ. To remain a virgin for the sake of the Kingdom is a sign of the Kingdom to come in which there is no giving and taking in marriage. Remind your friend that the Lord Jesus remained a virgin - as did, of course, His mother.
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This is true, but again Mary was not in an ordinary marriage. (And Jesus was not married at all obviously!) The OP asked about people in an ordinary marriage who remained virgins. The Church does not call married people to the virgin state or ask consecrated virgins to marry.

I can think of a few early church Saints like Cecilia who were called to consecrated virginity but forced to marry by their parents or other circumstances. In those cases the Saint was usually martyred for their faith (as exhibited by their refusal to consumate the marriage because of their vows). In a few other cases (like St Rita) they were reconciled to the married state and did not preserve their virginity during marriage but went on to have children and normal married relationships.

As the priest to St Teresa’s parents told them, a married couple is expected to consumate the marriage and to maintain regular marital intercourse for the purposes of procreation and unifcation.
 
The only married saint who remained a virgin, that I can remember without doing some research, is St. Cecilia. She was forced into a marriage against her will, refused to consummate it, and very shortly thereafter was martyred.

Our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph were married under the Old Law. A celibate marriage was permissable under the old law, so there was nothing wrong with it, nor did any exception to the rules need to made for them.

In the Catholic Church, celibate marriage is not permissable. Failure to consummate the marriage, in fact, is grounds for an annulment. If a person is unable, due to physical disability, to consummate the marriage, that person is not admitted to the sacrament. If a physical disability later (sometime after the marriage begins) makes the marital embrace possible for either spouse, then celibacy is completely acceptable and the marriage remains intact.

Gertie
 
It’s grounds for annulment – if one of the spouses objects.

With mutual consent, it’s perfectly proper for people to be married but never consummate the relationship. It’s not usual, it’s not usually advisable, but it’s allowable.

This “Josephite marriage” seems to have been an option primarily for people who wanted to pursue a vocation but who were not permitted to do so by their families. (Curiously, a fair number of European nobles and royals seem to have taken this path; we know because a good chunk of them followed this path to become saints.) It was modelled after Mary and Joseph, and legislated by Paul’s comment that spouses could abstain from sex for the purpose of prayer.

However, the rules of the game of Josephite marriage were that, if one spouse requested sex, the other spouse was obliged to agree. Mutual consent or nothing. So it’s obvious why only one spouse’s objection to nonconsummation is sufficient to get annulment – without mutual consent, there’s no marriage.
 
Mintaka said:
It’s grounds for annulment – if one of the spouses objects.

With mutual consent, it’s perfectly proper for people to be married but never consummate the relationship. It’s not usual, it’s not usually advisable, but it’s allowable.

This “Josephite marriage” seems to have been an option primarily for people who wanted to pursue a vocation but who were not permitted to do so by their families. (Curiously, a fair number of European nobles and royals seem to have taken this path; we know because a good chunk of them followed this path to become saints.) It was modelled after Mary and Joseph, and legislated by Paul’s comment that spouses could abstain from sex for the purpose of prayer.

However, the rules of the game of Josephite marriage were that, if one spouse requested sex, the other spouse was obliged to agree. Mutual consent or nothing. So it’s obvious why only one spouse’s objection to nonconsummation is sufficient to get annulment – without mutual consent, there’s no marriage.
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Thanks for the excellent clarification 👍

Gertie
 
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