Chili

Nice stories but it doesn't make much sense to me that in those days males were waiting to get old so they could marry young virgins.

Let me suggest that the apparent youth of Mary is a reflection of her beauty that is found in the new life she bore Joseph for which she was send down from heaven to the gates of Galilee and meet Joseph there. Of course she was beautiful but her beauty is found in our awakening to her as the mother of God in us. Here is what Boethuis has to say on this: "She was so full of years that I could hardly think of her as of my own generation, and yet she possessed a vivid color and undiminished vigour . . . her clothes were made of imperishable material, of the finest tread woven with the most delicate skill. . . . their color, however, was obscured by a kind of film as of long neglect, like a statue covered in dust." (Book 1, page 1 "Consolation of Philosophy").

In Coriolanus Mary is Volumnia (who's name echo's the volume of infinity that is called from Pi to Theta by Boethuis), and she is Virgilia as the mother of God in us.

According to me Joseph was alive and well but "not part of their plan or their actions" because the Gospel story happened to him (Luke 23:51-). He was the Jew from Arimathea who expectantly looked forward to the reign of God and had a tomb ready to bury his ego in. It shows that Joseph was earnest about his faith wherein he was like an ark builder with a purpose and simultaneously a tomb hewer in his expectancy to succeed.