It became increasingly important to establish legal childhood to enable rightful inheritance. The local priest, being able to read and write, was then gradually pulled into recording marriage contracts as legal agreements. At first these contracts occurred at the door of the church where many other legal transactions of the day occurred. Eventually, at the end of the ceremony the couple followed the priest indoors to the altar for Holy Communion. But it took 1000 years for Christians to move the entire marriage ceremony inside the church.
Few ministers give it a second thought.
Until recently, that is. In these churches, during a regular worship service, a couple publicly recites their vows for a lifetime together but they never get a secular marriage license. Pastors who perform these unlicensed marriages defend their actions by saying the church's interest is primarily moral not legal or financial. Their opponents charge these ministers are performing nothing more than a sanctioned shack-up. Revision suggestions invited.