[adiaireton8]

So since you reject the Fifth Ecumenical Council's teaching on Mary's perpetual virginity, why then do you accept the Ecumenical Creeds?

That IS the corner you seem to have backed yourself into, my dear sister, and highly esteemed fellow saint.

Your assumption that couples must engage in sexual relations with one another is the false assumption. Paul even points this out in 1 Cor 7:5, where his qualification concerning married couples abstaining "for a time" is still "by way of concession, not of command". The 'duty' of engaging in sexual relations with one's spouse depends upon the state of the spouse. If a husband and a wife both desire to consecrate themselves to the Lord and give up sexual relations, then they have no overriding duty to engage in sexual relations with each other. And thus Mary and Joseph did not sin by never having sexual relations.

-A8

[Antoninus]

Your assumption that couples must engage in sexual relations with one another is the false assumption. Paul even points this out in 1 Cor 7:5, where his qualification concerning married couples abstaining "for a time" is still "by way of concession, not of command". The 'duty' of engaging in sexual relations with one's spouse depends upon the state of the spouse. If a husband and a wife both desire to consecrate themselves to the Lord and give up sexual relations, then they have no overriding duty to engage in sexual relations with each other. And thus Mary and Joseph did not sin by never having sexual relations.

Nailed it!

[TomSmedley]

married couples abstaining "for a time" ...

And then, come together again, lest Satan tempt you ... for we are not ignorant of his devices. Like fasting, this kind of abstinence is viewed as a temporary condition. To make it permanent is to sin against the spouse, and the God Who ordained and blessed the marital union as normative.