Your views on MARRIAGE

[Esquilax]

What I meant was that that part of it, to me, was the real marriage... and that is what mattered. My husband and I got our marriage license 2 weeks before our actual wedding, but we didn't consider ourselves married until we actually made those promises to each other before God.

Don't marriage licenses need to be solemnized and submitted to the government to be made official anyway? If that's the case where you are, you literally weren't married until your officiant signed the document anyway.

Interestingly, my case is the exact opposite of yours; my wife and I have been legally married for months now, without the input of a religious entity (we got married in a state that allows couples to handle the paperwork side themselves without needing a registered officiant, so we kinda married ourselves) but we haven't yet had a ceremony. We're going to, but in the meantime I'm still her husband, and she's still my wife.

You are incorrect in your assertion of me. When my husband and I got married, he was still a college student, and I had a restaurant job. We didn't start making any real money until my husband joined the Air Force as a pilot 3 years after we got married. Our reason for getting married had nothing to do with financial gain because neither one of us had any money at the time.

I feel like Rhythm was responding to the part where you noted that the church only marries legally married people, and not intimating that you got married for the government perks?