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huxley (m)
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My suspicion is that Joseph was probably a middle-aged or elderly man when Jesus was born and that he would have died when Jesus and his siblings were still children and teenagers. If Jesus had 5 siblings as some sources allege, the early death of his father would have left the family really cash-strapped and in penury.
The question is - how would she have supported her family without the income of her husband? I suspect she would have taken to prostitution, which I think was one of the only avenues available for women at the time. And there would have been a huge demand for the services of prostitute given the cosmopolitan nature of the area at the time, populated by peoples from Rome, Greece, Africa, Persia, etc, etc.
And there appears to be some tradition that Mary's family was not particularly averse to prostitution. Mary's relation, Mary Magdalene, is known from some tradition to have been a prostitute. If this is true, Magdalene would have been well place to advise Mary mother of Jesus to enter into the profession.
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