[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Actually your take on marriage is demonstrably wrong in historical terms: Roman civil marriage was also monogamous and owed nothing to Jewish Scripture. It was Roman civil marriage, not Jewish marriage, which became the basis for Christian marriage.

Christianity came from Judaism, which was long before the Romans were even a ‘shot in the dark.’ Yeshua was a Jew and there is a reference to marriage in the Gospel (forgive me, I'm not a Christian and cannot recall the text).

Now, you may make the argument that the basis for Roman Catholic marriage (which some Christians would argue is of a pagan nature) is from the Roman pagan culture.

Adultery was certainly condoned and sanctioned for the male in Rome and in Greece, something the Judaic culture had forbid, despite their history of polygyny.

But, even so, the nature of marriage is biological, establishing who the parents were for inheritance. It is a creationist model nevertheless, as even the pagan Romans, pagan Greeks and other ancient pagan cultures were. It just so happens that marriage in this country is based on the Judaic model, otherwise we would not have adultery as legal grounds for a woman seeking a divorce.

[The_Reader_David]

Yes, Christianity came from Judaism, but Christian marriage came from Roman marriage. There was no Christian marriage rite copied or adapted from the Jewish rite. Indeed within the Empire the Church had no specific rite for marriage until the 9th century (again I don't know what the Latins outside the Empire did about this). Until then Christian marriages were as I described them: Roman civil marriages undertaken with the blessing of the bishop.

Christ's reference to marriage is not bounded or conditioned on the Jewish notion either--Jews were permitted both multiple wives and concubines, while Roman marriages were monogamous, albeit with the defect of concubinage as in institution--rather Christ refers to the natural institution in its ideal form.

Nor is there any point in separating 'Roman Catholic' from Christian here: I am discussing the state of Christian marriage before even the schism of the Nestorians from the Church, and even the institution of the 'rite of crowning' and the transfer of the registration of marriages to the Church took place before the schism of the Roman patriarchate from the Church.