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Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Generally agreed. Unfortunately, I believe religious heterosexual marriage antedates many/most modern political systems.
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Probably in some cases, but not in the case of Christianity, at least. The Church didn't authorize, sanctify, bless, conduct or otherwise condone marriage until quite late in the game. Then, they would give a blessing on a marriage, bur as they might to someone starting a new business venture or heading off to join the army, but marriages were still not conducted as ceremonies or sacraments withing the church (until the 1500s at least weddings were usually performed at the church door, if within a religious context at all, because the priest and the church had no role whatsoever in the marriage itself except to bless it afterwards). It wasn't until the 16th centuries that it became standard to have a priest basically run the show.
The marriage traditions that were adopted in, for lack of a better term, Christiandom, were largely Roman in origin, though various pre-Christian pagan traditions and regulations also continued to apply. For instance, the giving of mutual consent to the marriage ("I do") is a Roman legal requirement. The importance of consummation to make the marriage binding and non-annulable was a germanic pagan legal requirement. Various dowery or other contractual traditions (parents consenting and "giving" the bride) came from other pre-christian European traditions. Anyhow, all of these were entirely secular.
Basically, as the church gained temporal power it got progressively more involved because they realized that, if they controlled marriage, they controlled the alliances of powerful families and could keep the nobility from gaining sufficient power and cohesion to challenge the church. For instance, bans on marriage within certain ranges of cosanguinity (7 generations was standard - much greater than the current 2) were created for essentially political reasons - it kept families from reaffirming alliances through blood too often.
I note, also, that through out the middle ages there were effectively two forms of marriage, both legitimizing heirs but one permanent and binding involving the transfer of property and rights, and the other not necessarily permanent and not involving the transfer of property and titles [essentially what most people think of when they think of "handfasting" these days]. (Charlemagne, great defender of the Faith, never permitted any of his daughters to enter into binding marriage, because it would have meant them taking on the rank (lower) of their partners and transferring rights to their inheritance to them.) The church got involved only in the binding sort, because their interest was the transfer of rank and property not in the status of offspring or the moral posture of the unions. As late as the 12th century, some religious authorities were holding that all that was required for a marriage to be binding was the spoken mutual consent of the parties involved (with no witnesses), and the pope openly recognized the legitimacy of "non-binding" marriages. Finally, the Fourth Lateran Council required marriage to be blessed and witnessed (though still not conducted) by a priest to be recognized by the Church. But the Church of England recognized "secret" marriages (where the parties gave consent with no witnesses and no public ceremony) as legitimate until the 1th century, and until the mid 20th in Scotland, though the general idea that marriage, being a civil contract, should be conducted in public (i.e.: with witnesses) was pretty much set by the 17th century.
But even then, it was a civil, not religious institution. Note for the record that the catholic church never maintained it could prevent or challenge the legitimacy of marriages of Jews, though it did not (still doesn't) recognize the marriage as a sacrament.
edited to add: did y'all forget Rule No. 1 of the Internet: that the first one to say "Nazi" or "Hitler" automatically loses?
