The state's goal is to destroy marriage.
Ours should be to destroy the state's say in the matter.
Better yet, take vows in the Church and forget the state license.
That is what Christians should do in the U.S. now. The state doesn’t recognize our definition of marriage, then why buy into theirs? Especially given the punitive tax laws against married couples.
Catholicism is no different than any other huge religious, social govt system i.e. Islam. The Catholics rounded up and burned, true born again children of God, at the stake hundreds of years ago, as the truth threatened their establishment. Muzzies doing the same thing, only difference is they are still doing it today.
Then "marriage entries" morphed into "marriage licenses" just to make money for the state.
viz= There never was any such thing as a "marriage license" in order to get married. It was an invention of the British state to change "marriage entries" to "marriage licenses" to get revenues.
"Marriage Records
Marriage entries recorded the date and place of marriage. Information included the ages of the two parties, their residences, marital status, occupations, fathers, and even their fathers' occupations.
Civil copies of marriage entries are duplicates of original church entries.
Thus, since it was the duty of the minister to forward copies of all of the marriages he performed, the vast majority have been recorded at the civil level, even in the early years of civil registration.
However, always be sure to check the original church record since there are often discrepancies between the civil and ecclesiastical copies of the same record. Clerical errors happen! We blogged about this recently."
http://www.progenealogists.com/greatbritain/englishcivilregistration.htm
For the elderly in the US, this would work just fine.
A sacramental wedding instead of a civil one, would prevent the loss of pension benefits for widows.