Identifying a spider from coastal Virginia
These are very likely one of the common spiders that gets called House Spider, but this variety is one of the comb-footed spiders; the Theridiidae.  They're sometimes also called Tangleweb Spiders or something along those lines.  They make those messy webs, and hang upside down just as you show.  You can tell these guys aren't Araneus or one of the other Araneid orbweavers, because they're not hanging vertically in an orbweb.  This particular spider is probably the very variable and common Parasteatoda tepidariorum, and the smaller one is, as you guessed, a male.  They will share the web for a day or so until he mates and moves on.  You should be aware that the related Black Widow has this same general body shape and habit, and may be stripy and have banded legs like you see in the photo when the females are young.  I suspect that was why TFE was asking for better photos - although you probably would have noted the red hourglass before if that was the case.  I'm inclined to go with P. tepidariorum, for two reasons: Latrodectus generally (but not always) are sensitive to disturbance, where the common House Spiders don't seem to mind, and the abdomen of the female seems to be a little more randomly patterned (as best we can see) than I would expect for a Latrodectus.
Here's a photo of P. tepidariorum with a snack:



https://bugguide.net/node/view/6919/bgimage