There would be NO reason to call Mary a virgin IF she had other kids after Jesus because SHE WOULDN'T BE ONE anymore! Thus, the Liturgy is proof that the earliest of Christians knew she was a virgin AFTER Christ.
This bit of logic struck me as "Duh, why didn't you see this before?" and I thought I'd share it with you.
Regards
It's always been this way. Otherwise, Church fathers would simply have said that Jesus was born of a virgin, but would NEVER have referred to her as the Virgin Mary; otherwise, the term could be used on any female who later had children.
Here, thanks to Salvation, a quote about Eve and Mary:
The Lord, coming into his own creation in visible form, was sustained by his own creation which he himself sustains in being. His obedience on the tree of the cross reversed the disobedience at the tree in Eden; the good news of the truth announced by an angel to Mary, a virgin subject to a husband, undid the evil lie that seduced Eve, a virgin espoused to a husband. As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the word of an angel, and bore God in obedience to his word. As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God; thus the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve. Christ gathered all things into one, by gathering them into himself. He declared war against our enemy, crushed him who at the beginning had taken us captive in Adam, and trampled on his head, in accordance with God’s words to the serpent in Genesis: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall lie in wait for your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel. The one lying in wait for the serpent’s head is the one who was born in the likeness of Adam from the woman, the Virgin. This is the seed spoken of by Paul in the letter to the Galatians: The law of works was in force until the seed should come to whom the- promise was made. He shows this even more clearly in the same letter when he says: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman. The enemy would not have been defeated fairly if his vanquisher had not been born of a woman, because it was through a woman that he had gained mastery over man in the beginning, and set himself up as man’s adversary. That is why the Lord proclaims himself the Son of Man, the one who renews in himself that first man from whom the race born of woman was formed; as by a man’s defeat our race fell into the bondage of death, so by a man’s victory we were to rise again to life.
Note that while Eve is described as "a virgin espoused to a husband", Mary is described as "a virgin subject to a husband", indicating no spousal relationship, but merely that of custodial duty, consistent with the Protoevangelium.
Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium, the Triune God's Triumphant Threefold Treatise on Truth, has permanently settled the matter and everything - including the Liturgy as you sagely note - witnesses to that radiant truth in prose and poetry in song and treatises, and in lives lived in imitation of her.
And all of that is to be dethroned due to someone's personal opinion?
Please. The arrogance of that idea is outrageous and insane. What was that about whom the Gods would destroy..:)