jw,
OK. I understand. I agree that there should have been more talk and more interest in his wife, etc, if he actually had married. But there is also a lack of evidence about much of Jesus' life. Someone already mentioned that his own brothers would have been expected to marry and have children. We also know very little about them. (Actually, Eusebius gives us hints that the early church thought about Jesus "bloodline" to the extent that he claims they considered ALL of Jesus' brothers as possible candidates for the position of leadership that his brother James took in Jerusalem - just a few weeks after the Gospel accounts had labeled him an unbeliever.)
Some books about this in the past 30 years have argued that it would have been more of a scandal had Jesus NOT been married. But Paul seems to explain this with the idea that centrist Christianity was already putting a value on LACK of marriage, "EUNUCH's for the Kingdom", marry only if inflamed with passion, husbands with wives be as though they had none, etc. The story of Paul and Thecla (early Christian "novella" that came out of the 130's or so at the earliest gives more evidence that some Christians valued celibacy. Of Peter, James and John at least, it would appear that only Peter was married, or at least only Peter brought his wife down to Jerusalem. Perhaps he only meant that the others may have left theirs in Galilee, perhaps as Rutherford left his in California "for the sake of the Kingdom" (Bethel).
We know very little of Jesus' life from birth to age 30-ish. We don't know for sure about whether his father had died. We don't know if his wife had also died and Jesus own strict beliefs about no remarriage had in fact suited him perfectly for his ministry. If he had had a wife who was still alive at the time, would she have necessarily been a follower? Didn't Jesus say that his teaching had produced a sword in families, and divided husband and wife, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.
By the way, some of the proponents of Jesus' supposed marriage in the last 30 or 40 years have offered the idea that the wedding of Cana is actually a reference to Jesus own wedding, but that giving all the specifics of this wedding would have drawn too much attention to Jesus' personal life. It would have invaded the privacy of his family. It would have distracted from the real import and meaning of his public ministry. That would be the same explanation as to why we don't have much secular information about Jesus life and family. Mentioning anything secular would have just resulted in a lot of unnecessary selling of "Christian" relics and artifacts. As it was, you could still buy a "guaranteed to be real" piece of the "cross" he died on up until the 1400's.
Gamaliel
