Making marital status required for pending worker pages

I am working to make Marital Status required across pending worker pages (Add a Pending Worker, Convert Pending Worker, Edit Pending Worker). However, even with using Transaction Design Studio and Page Composer, the results are inconsistent. The latest issue is that this field can be ignored unless the pencil icon is clicked first. Is there a way to make this field required but w/o clicking the pencil icon? Any insights or direction are much appreciated.