Was the Blessed Virgin Mary & St. Joseph not married at the time of the Annunication?

In recent movies, discussions, and homilies, I have personally noticed a growing trend to speak of the Annunciation (Incarnation) as taking place before the marriage of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Joseph. With the feast of the Annunciation just around the corner, I thought it was appropriate to write this post.

The view mentioned above of course raises some questions as to why God would want to expose the Blessed Virgin Mary to such public scandal this way. A certain movie in recent times tries to vividly portray how the condition of the Blessed Mother was perceived by the public as a scandal (the name of the movie which I will not mention here but was one of the main motivations behind writing this post). 

So is it consistent with Scripture and Church teaching to assert that the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph were not married at the time of the Annunciation? The answer is NO!

As this article "Two Terrible Translations" posted at the website Catholic Culture highlights, the whole understanding that the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph were not married at the time stems from a bad translation and misunderstanding of Jewish customs on marriage. 

Annunciation by Girogio Vasari

The article points out how the Jewish marriage has two parts but it is not the equivalent of the engagement and marriage in our modern understanding. Rather, the couple is married after the very first ceremony and enjoys all marital rights of a married couple. The second ceremony is simply the one held to celebrate the husband and wife starting to live together in one home. So for all purposes, as the article points out, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph were married at the time of the Annunciation. The translations that use the word "engaged" are doing a great disservice to promoting an error. 

How has this matter been viewed in the Tradition of the Church? The article quotes

"For it was not deceitfully that the angel said to Joseph: 'Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife.' She is called his wife because of her first troth of betrothal (kiddushin), although he had no carnal knowledge of her, nor was destined to have."
-- (St. Augustine, "On Marriage And Concupiscence.", Book 1)

". . . for any woman espoused to a man is given the name of wife. It is from the time that a marriage begins that the marital terminology is employed. It is not the deflowering of virginity that makes a marriage, but the marital contract." -- (St. Ambrose, "The Faith of the Early Fathers", Vol. 2, p.172).

"Thus we may say, as to the first perfection, that the marriage of the Virgin Mother of God and Joseph was absolutely true: because both consented to the nuptial bond, but not expressly to the bond of the flesh, save on the condition that it was pleasing to God.
For this reason the angel called Mary the wife of Joseph, saying to him (Matthew 1:20): 'Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife.'"
-- (St. Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologica", Third Part, Q29, Art. 2)

You can find the full discussion by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica here

That same articles points out that this matter is settled in terms of Church teaching as well. Bl. John Paul II (soon to be saint) writes in the Apostolic Exhortation

"Above all, the "just" man of Nazareth possesses the clear characteristics of a husband. Luke refers to Mary as "a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph" (Lk 1:27). Even before the "mystery hidden for ages" (Eph 3:9) began to be fulfilled, the Gospels set before us the image of husband and wife. According to Jewish custom, marriage took place in two stages: first, the legal, or true marriage was celebrated, and then, only after a certain period of time, the husband brought the wife into his own house. Thus, before he lived with Mary, Joseph was already her "husband." Mary, however, preserved her deep desire to give herself exclusively to God"
--(Bl. John Paul II, "Redemptoris Custos", Paragraph #18)

For those wanting more confirmation, the historian Dr. Warren Carroll in his book "Founding of Christendom" points out the same as above in the Chapter discussing the incarnation. 

So those who keep saying that the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph were only engaged and then proceed to make theological conclusions or analysis from it need to stop. It is contradictory to what is in Scripture, Tradition, and the writings of a recent Pope.

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