A state can end it’s participation in marriage by simply signing onto a civil union pact, which protects property situations. You can rig up a dissolving of a civil union as well (some divorce in basic terms). You could write this as a law in twelve lines....that’s how simple it is.
History-wise....none of the states had marriage laws when 1776 rolled around....this occurred with property issues and eventually got forced as a ‘solution’ and the ‘license’.
What??????? Even Thomas Jefferson had a marriage license for his marriage in 1772, and as a lawyer he also got involved in divorce law. George Washington had a legal marriage.
Here is a piece on Virginia marriage law: As you can see, even in the early 1600s you needed a license or a bane.
*An act in 1628 forbade marriages “without lycence or asking in church.” In 1632, in the same group of acts that empowered church wardens to collect penalties of one shilling for each unexcused absence from church and that required ministers to preach one sermon every Sunday, it was stated that “noe mynister shall celebrate matrymony betweene any persons without a facultie or lycense graunted by the Governor except the banes of matrymony have beene first published three severall Sondayes or holidayes” in a church located where the parties lived.