Well, it's a little hard to work out how God would want to violate Mary and Joseph's marriage by taking Mary and impregnating her,
if Mary were married to Joseph in the full manner such that "all her reproductive genetic future was espoused to Joseph." (As MHGinTN correctly said, that's an aspect of a true marriage: your whole childbearing capacity is vowed exclusively to your spouse.)
MHGinTN resolves that potentially scandalous cuckoldry by saying Mary was not really Jesus' mother, she was just a gestational container. I don't think that's true, but it does show a theoretical attempt, anyway, to evade the otherwise unavoidable conclusion that God violated a marriage covenant.
The Church, historically, takes quite a different approach. The Church resolves the dilemma by teaching that Mary and Joseph did not have, and never intended to have, a fully conjugal marriage with sexual union. In other words, the Church has historically said Mary was NOT married to Joseph in the full manner such that "all her reproductive genetic future was espoused to Joseph." That also avoids having God violating what would have been Joseph and Mary's exclusive sexual and procreative pledge.
If Mary understood herself as previously covenanted to God, her perpetual virginity would equal perpetual fidelity TO GOD, the Father of her Son. This preserves her honor as being truly faithful. She is God's.
I find it unbearable to think that God would just pick up and use Mary as a disposable fetus-carton, and then toss her back to cuckolded Joseph as if to say, "Here, I got what I wanted; now you can have her."
An ugly thought. Repugnant to contemplate. Blasphemous.
I think perpetual fidelity is a meaningful and beautiful sign and an ongoing theme, Biblically speaking. Israel was supposed to be perpetually and exclusively faithful to God. Virgin daughter Zion. A beautiful image of Mary.
I don't agree with the idea at all that God
COULD violate OR cuckold Joseph by choosing Mary to be the virgin birthgiver to the Messiah - it was a tremendous HONOR for both of them. In fact, I think to suggest such is an ugly thought. Repugnant to contemplate. Blasphemous. What the Almighty chooses to do is ALWAYS righteous and good - He is not a man that He should lie or sin in any way. We have prophecy in Scripture that confirms the sign God would give:
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. (Isa. 7:14) This is the miracle and it joins more than 300 other prophecies that identify the Savior who is God with us. One would think with all these minute details given something would have been mentioned regarding the need for the mother to remain a perpetual virgin. But there isn't anything. In fact, and contrary to your assertion that this has always been a doctrine held by Christians, it didn't even start to be written about and tossed around until three or more centuries after that last Apostle died (John, BTW). It was with a rising tide of asceticism and monasticism and a repulsion of seeing sexual intercourse in a holy and positive way along with a growing cultic devotion to saints and Mary, in particular, that started the drive towards acceptance of Mary being perpetually virgin and her husband, Joseph, as well.
From http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/11/more-early-opponents-of-marys-perpetual.html, we learn:
In the West before Hilary - that is, up to the middle of the fourth century - there is no witness at all for the 'semper virgo' [perpetual virginity]; and that can hardly be a mere chance: see pp. 72 f. below. Hippolytus, too, regards the 'brothers of Jesus' as the children of Joseph and Mary... [apparently quoting Hippolytus:] 'He [Jesus] did [not] acknowledge as brothers those who were regarded as his brothers according to the body; the Redeemer did not acknowledge them, because in truth those [were] not his brothers who were born from Joseph through seed, but he from the Virgin and the Holy Spirit; and they regarded them as his brothers, but he did not acknowledge them.'" (Hans von Campenhausen, The Virgin Birth In The Theology Of The Ancient Church [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2011], n. 4 on 48-9) Here are some other examples of people who denied Mary's perpetual virginity:
"The radical, critical Arians such as Eudoxius and Eunomius disapproved of the perpetual virginity all along, and the cautious discussions that Basil the Great devotes to this subject show that it was not generally acknowledged, even in orthodox circles. Basil was concerned, as always, to avoid any unnecessary accentuation of hostilities between rival parties in the sphere of Church law. He emphasizes that the acceptance of Mary's perpetual virginity is not really necessary. A dogmatic judgment that simply maintained her virginity up to the birth of Jesus would be adequate, and thanks to the positive testimony in Matthew this fact remains all along beyond discussion. But Basil adds at once that the assertion that the Mother of God ever ceased to be a virgin could not well be tolerated by devout Christians...In the traditional style of the fight against heretics, he [Epiphanius] constructs for himself a sect of 'Antidicomarianites', who, of course, can have been induced only by the most sinister motives to defame the holy Virgin by casting doubt on her perpetual virginity....He [Ambrose] is indignant that there are people, even bishops, who can doubt her [Mary's] perpetual virginity" (ibid., 64-5, 77-8)
"Bonosus (d. c.400). A Bp. of Naissus (as Innocent I implies, epp. 16 and 17) or Sardica (acc. to Marius Mercator), who denied the perpetual virginity of the BVM. His teaching was examined at a council at Capua in 391 and subsequently condemned; but Bonosus refused to submit and founded a sect (the 'Bonosians') which survived down to the 7th cent....Acc. to St Augustine (De haer. 84), he [Helvidius] won disciples who were known as 'Helvidians'." (F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, edd., The Oxford Dictionary Of The Christian Church [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], 225, 749)
Also, from http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/01/are-jesus-siblings-children-from.html#more:
One of the most important concepts to focus on when thinking about this issue is what other options were available to the authors in question. What other language could they have used? For example, Luke refers to Jesus as Mary's "firstborn" (2:7), even though elsewhere he uses a different term for "only born" (7:12, 9:38). Why would Luke use a term that seems to contradict Mary's perpetual virginity when he was aware of an alternative term that's consistent with perpetual virginity and uses it elsewhere in his gospel? Similarly, why does Luke differentiate between "brothers" and "relatives" in 21:16 if there's no significant difference between the two? In the same way, why does Hegesippus refer to Symeon as Jesus' "cousin" (in Eusebius, Church History, 4:22:4), yet refer to James as Jesus' "brother" (ibid., 2:23:4) and Jude as Jesus' "brother according to the flesh" (ibid., 3:20:1)? We see this over and over again with the earliest sources. They not only use language that seems to contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary, but even use different language elsewhere that's consistent with perpetual virginity, which they could have used in the passages relevant to Mary…. Since Josephus is among the early sources who seem to contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary, we can sum up the evidence by saying that the doctrine is inconsistent with the most natural reading of a few New Testament authors, the earliest patristic sources to discuss the topic, and the earliest non-Christian source to address the subject….
By the way, Svendsen also addresses the view that the brothers were children of Joseph from a former marriage. It's subject to some of the same criticisms as the view that the brothers were cousins or some other more distant type of relative (Matthew 1:25, Luke 2:7, the term "brother" more often refers to biological siblings, etc.). Another problem with the view is the absence of the siblings in the infancy narratives. I discuss multiple ways in which their absence is problematic in an article on Matthew and Luke's agreements in the infancy narratives:
One of the points I make there is one I don't recall Svendsen or anybody else making. It's often claimed that the infancy narratives are meant to parallel Jesus to Old Testament figures. Yet, two of the most significant figures Jesus allegedly is being paralleled to in the New Testament, Moses and David, had older siblings who played a large role in their lives. Moses' older sister even has a prominent role in the Exodus account of Moses' birth. If Matthew and Luke (and other sources) were paralleling Jesus to figures like Moses and David, it would have been in their interest to have mentioned older siblings. Instead, both infancy narratives imply that Mary gave birth to more children (Matthew 1:25, Luke 2:7), and both leave out any reference to older siblings when the family and their moving from one location to another are described (e.g., "take the child and his mother" in Matthew 2:13).
Any argument that the siblings were old enough at the time to be living apart from Joseph and Mary would run into the problem of offering a weaker explanation for how long the brothers of Jesus lived and were highly active (e.g., 1 Corinthians 9:5, James' death by martyrdom in the 60s while serving as a leader of the Jerusalem church and one of the most prominent apostles). Maybe Jesus' brothers lived unusually long and were highly active at such an old age. But the alternative view that they were younger siblings of Jesus offers a better explanation of the evidence. It's yet another example of how upholding Mary's perpetual virginity requires us to adopt less likely explanations of the evidence on issue after issue after issue.
But, like I already said, why does this need to be a hill to die on or a constant thorn of contention between Freepers? I can accept and respect that Catholics believe Mary remained a virgin throughout her marriage to Joseph while still disagreeing with them and I have sound reasons why I disagree. It would be refreshing to see some mutual respect.
I find it unbearable to think that God would just pick up and use Mary as a disposable fetus-carton, and then toss her back to cuckolded Joseph as if to say, "Here, I got what I wanted; now you can have her." An ugly thought. Repugnant to contemplate. Blasphemous. Something only a Catholic mind could come up with, I guess because I have NEVER heard of any Christian alluding to Mary in that manner.
Do yourself a favor and do not ascribe your warped fantasies to Christian thinking.
It destroys your credibility. It's as bad as the *God is a celestial rapist* garbage.
Honestly where do Catholics come up with this stuff, (for a word that would otherwise get this post pulled)