"Christian marriage" has been around as long as Christianity, right?

No.

Prior to 1563 there was no religious marriage ceremony, no church involvement. All that was required for a couple to be considered legally married was for them to decide they wanted to marry, then to have sex. Or for the prospective bride's father to sell her to the groom, and then for them to have sex. Or for a raped girl/woman to be forced to marry her rapist. No sex, no marriage.

For several of its early centuries, Christianity was pretty much anti-marriage, it being, as Paul wrote, for those too weak to remain celibate. The idea was for everyone to be as pure as possible, ready for the end of the world. But the end didn't come and humans don't reproduce by parthenogenesis, so...

But I thought there were marriage sacraments performed in the RC liturgies before that. What happened in 1563?

I'm not an expert on this subject, but I seem to remember learning that at a certain point men were taking advantage of young women on an unfeasible scale. "oh, baby, I love you sooooo much. Have sex with me and we'll totes be married." But once the sex was over all bets were off.

So young women were being deflowered left and right, often pregnant, and the whole situation got out of hand. I think the Catholic church stepped in and said enough was enough.

But I could be remembering something out of context, so don't take my word for it.

And nobody ever believes me when I say that marriage is a relatively recent invention. My TBM little sis just kind of blinked in a "does not compute" way.

And there were the women's/girls' lethally angry families to avoid.

Anyway, I think it was the Council of Trent that set forth the new rules.

I know - I've said the same to people and gotten the same look. LOL!

All I have to compare hard information about is Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law w.r.t. marriage. I'm wondering if Stray Mutt's date is an English law thing, or ...?

>> In medieval Europe, marriage came under the jurisdiction of canon law, which recognized as a valid marriage one where the parties stated that they took one another as wife and husband, even in absence of any witnesses.

>> The Roman Catholic Church forbade clandestine marriage at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which required all marriages to be announced in a church by a priest. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) introduced more specific requirements, ruling that in the future a marriage would be valid only if witnessed by the pastor of the parish or the local ordinary (i.e., the bishop of the diocese), or by the delegate of one of said witnesses, the marriage being invalid otherwise, even if witnessed by a Roman Catholic priest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage

Here's an interesting read on the subject: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/history_of_marriage_in_western.html

Let's not leave out the Protestants:

>>The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century rejected the prevailing concept of marriage along with many other Catholic doctrines. Martin Luther declared marriage to be "a worldly thing . . . that belongs to the realm of government", and a similar opinion was expressed by Calvin. The English Puritans in the 17th century even passed an Act of Parliament asserting "marriage to be no sacrament" and soon thereafter made marriage purely secular. It was no longer to be performed by a minister, but by a justice of the peace. The Restoration abolished this law and reverted to the old system, but the Puritans brought their concept of marriage to America where it survived.<<