The cult of St Joseph is today different in the East than it is in the West.

It is true that deuterocanonical sources portray St Joseph as an elderly man, probably someone who was a widower with children from his first marriage, before he became the spouse of the Mother of God.

Ancient icons of St Joseph in the East depict him as a grey-bearded man holding the Child Jesus and often either a lily for purity or else two turtle doves, the offering of the poor at the Temple of Jerusalem.

The West came later to a strong devotion to St Joseph, as one Catholic writer called him, "the man whom God called 'Father.'"

There is the miraculous Shrine of St Joseph of Montreal in Canada which represents the classic western expression of devotion to him. He is portrayed as a young, virile man, an example of a husband and father. The Roman Catholic Church declared him to be the patron of workers and declared May 1st to be the day of "St Joseph the Worker" as a kind of counterbalance against the communist "May Day."

There is nothing wrong with portraying Joseph as such and it is good that men have an excellent role model in St Joseph. The East declared St George to be the Patron Saint of husbands, however. The Christian East tended to depict him as an elderly man to underscore the Perpetual Virginity of Mary who was married to someone older i.e. who was not interested in sexual relations and the like.

This made sense at the time since this truth about the Mother of God was blasphemously attacked by some opponents of Christianity.

The Muslim Prophet Muhammad himself defended the Perpetual Virginity of Mary as a Divine article of faith and warned those who blasphemed against it that God would visit them with punishment.