There was the development of Feudalism, The Crusades, The Magna Carta, The Hundred Years' War, The Black Death, and the disagreements between Popes and Kings.
In 1753, however, the Marriage Act, promoted by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, declared that all marriage ceremonies must be conducted by a minister in a parish church or chapel of the Church of England to be legally binding.
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280919.003.0009 In 1969, Parliament passed the Divorce Reform Act, which was supposedly based on the principle that the fact that a marriage had irretrievably broken down should be a sufficient and exhaustive ground for divorce.