St. Joseph's Dilemma

In my earlier post I pointed to the fact that throughout his life Martin Luther held to the perpetual virginity of Mary. However, he did not spend much time discussing Mary herself. Of her he wrote, 

[Mary] is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin. God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil. God is with her, meaning that all she did or left undone is divine and the action of God in her. Moreover, God guarded and protected her from all that might be hurtful to her. Luther's Works (LW), American edition, Vol. 43:40, ed. H. Lehmann, Fortress, 1968

Concerning the possibility of her having children other than Jesus, he commented,

I am inclined to agree with those who declare that “brothers” really means “cousins” here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers. (LW-22:215)

Whether or not the Lord had half brothers “neither adds to nor detracts from faith. It is immaterial whether these men were Christ’s cousins or His brothers begotten by Joseph. (LW-45:205-6)

Nevertheless, Luther led the way to restoring the honor and propriety of Christian marriage by marrying the former nun, Katharina von Bora. Both had taken vows of chastity prior to this. In that sense they were spiritual brothers and sisters of Christ in medieval church eyes. That would mean they had both broken their vows and were committing a kind of spiritual incest. But in Luther's eyes marriage was an honorable estate. In a published sermon on the estate of marriage, he writes, 

Because the union of man and woman signifies such a great mystery, the estate of marriage has to have this special significance. This means that the wicked lust of the flesh, which nobody is without, is a conjugal obligation and is not reprehensible when expressed within marriage, but in all other cases outside the bond of marriage, it is mortal sin. In a parallel way the holy manhood of God covers the same of the wicked lust of the flesh (Ps. 32:1; Rom. 5:7). Therefore a married man should have regard for such a sacrament (a sacred sign of something spiritual, holy, heavenly and eternal), honor it as sacred, and behave properly in marital obligations, so that those things which originate in the lust of the flesh do not occur [among us] as they do in the world of brute beasts. (LW-44:10)

The "lust of the flesh" flows from original sin. The second article in Lutheranism's Augsburg Confession on the doctrine of original sin:

It is also taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. Rejected in this connection are the Pelagians and others who deny that original sin is sin, for they hold that natural man is made righteous by his own powers, thus disparaging the sufferings and merit of Christ.[41]

Yet no one seems concerned about Mary's husband, Joseph, in the numerous discussions about Mary's perpetual virginity and holiness. He does not utter a single word in the Gospels. None of the church fathers suggest that he was freed from original sin at birth. All I read is that Joseph may have been married earlier and had other children and that those may be the brothers and sisters referred to in the Gospels (Matt. 12:46; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19). That suggests that Joseph did indeed have a healthy and active sex drive. So what about Mary's duty to protect her husband from the sinful lust of his flesh? Recall the Apostle instructions to married couples:

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. - 1Cr 7:2-5 ESV

I end this discussion with an invitation for you to ponder Joseph's dilemma of possibly being married to a perpetual virgin.