when is a couple married i used to be a marriage commissioner for the alaska court system sort of a justice of the peace i had great difficulty with that duty i used to pray earnestly in the courthouse bathroom before the ceremonies mostly asking that the couples would come to appreciate and fulfill the true holiness and divine purpose in marriage couples who obviously didn t realize that marriage is god s institution not the state s gradually however i came to conclude that because i was acting in a strictly secular public capacity established as such by both the state and the expectations of the couples involved i was really conducting a purely secular legal civil event with no greater moral or religious implications than if i had been conducting a civil trial the couple who told me mid ceremony to please hurry it up may have helped me to this conclusion i thought i had neatly rationalized a clear and sharp distinction between marriage before god and marriage before the state until i had to deal with my own divorce keeping matthew in mind i felt that the state had no business dissolving my marriage established before god but of course it assumed jurisdiction nonetheless i would ask those of you proposing answers to this question to consider this issue s logical extension if intercourse or the mental intent of the parties or the ceremony of the church or any combination thereof establishes marriage then at what moment is it dissolved karl thoennes iii university of alaska
