On the one hand, a married person should not give up everything and force his or her spouse and children to have nothing. If both spouses desire it, and if it does not impair the sound and healthy upbringing and education of their children (spouses may not choose a kind of poverty that makes their children malnourished, or keeps them from any education), nor impose an undue burden on others around them, there is no particular degree of poverty that is forbidden them. But in most cases a proper familial and social life would not work without the family/spouses owning property.

On the other hand, as St. John says, "If any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" (1 John 3:17). A "simple" way of life may not correspond to the needs of others. Thomas Dubay, in his book Happy Are You Poor: The Simple Life and Spiritual Freedom argues that "simplicity" or merely the "spirit of poverty" is generally not enough, either for religious or for lay persons, married or unmarried. Persons or communities who easily have sufficient resources are called not only to a spiritual practice of poverty, but to a real practice of it.