Not ordinarily, but a temple virgin dedicated to celibacy would be married off to an older man, typically a widower, so that she can be taken care of economically. The Protoevangelium describes just that, and whether or ot you think it applies to Our Lady, it clearly was not in itself an outlandish idea back in 2c.“I know not man”, she said. A woman intending to have children with her fiancee does not respond like that.
You gotta love it when comdemned heretical documents like the Protoevanelium of James are cited to support so-called dogma.
1. According to the Decretum Gelasianum, the Protoevangelium of James is heretical and was “recognized by heretics or schismatics (and) the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church does not in any way receive; of these we have thought it right to cite below some which have been handed down and which are to be avoided by catholics.”
2. The author LIES in claiming to be James, stepbrother of Jesus Christ. Meaning that the Catholic Church accepts the word of a liar.
3.That Jesus Christ saved from Herod’s armies by hiding him in a trough (the Bible narrative in Matthew 1:13 – 16 makes it clear that Christ, Joseph, and Mary left long before there was a reason to hide).
4. From the age of 3 to 12, Mary was fed by the hand of an angel.
Sure, its an officially declared heretical/apochryphal book who's author is not who he says he is, written 120 years after the facts, other than that, its amazingly accurate. lol
In the word of a much respected FReerette,....
jeepers.....
I didn’t realize that Monty Python was curator of the Vatican archives and author of so much of their dogma.
“Not ordinarily, but a temple virgin dedicated to celibacy would be married off to an older man, typically a widower, so that she can be taken care of economically.”
And temple virgins too in the Jewish temple! As though the temple was a nunnery filled with Roman vestal virgins.
... is itself of dubious veracity; it is merely attributed to Pope Gelasius I (Link)
But let's say there are grounds to condemn the theology on the Protoevangelium. Still, it does nothing to take away from the fact that a 2c. book recorded Mary's intention to not consummate her marriage to Joseph carnally, even before the Annunciation. If it were such an outrageous idea as it is to 21c. Americans, it would not be in the book that survived to this day. We take much historical knowledge from books that are not theologically sound.