The French see it this way.  "Marriage is none other than a civil contract."  And that, oddly enough, found its way into the Louisiana Code of Louisiana, regions of which are heavily Catholic.  But it is not the Catholic way of seeing marriage.  It can't be, because marriage is not simply a secular contract. as the secularist Napoleon wanted it, but a sacrament entered into before God --- and to a Catholic, non-terminable by divorce except for spousal adultery.