And also looked at a deeper meaning of the writing, and assumed marriage to be a sacred pledge of fidelity. This mistaken interpretation was a turning point, in the Christian understanding of marriage as a sacrament. Towards the end of the century, bishops became more involved in the marriage ceremonies due to the fall of the Romans in face of the Germans. At the ending of the patristic period in the west, the bishops were getting involved with marriages illegally and there was still no universally recognized prohibition against divorce, and except Augustine no one considered of marriage to be a sacrament.
According to the Roman tradition marriage was by consent, and after the consent was given by either spouses or their guardians marriage was considered legal and binding, however in other traditions marriage was not considered to be complete until the first act of intercourse. In the middle of the 12th century marriage was unlike other rituals that were considered sacramental, there were primarily three reasons for this the first one being the involvement of financial arrangements in marriage, another problem with marriage being a sacrament was that marriage existed before Christ and lastly the most important reason marriage involved sexual intercourse. .
As time passed by, priests started assuming some of the functions that once were relegated to the guardians and the spouses themselves, and many of the secular customs in the wedding ceremony became part of an ecclesiastical wedding trial (Martos 37). .
It was only in the Council of Florence (1438-45) that the Church declared marriage one of the seven sacraments. The Council of Trent (1545-63) confirmed this teaching and ruled that for a marriage to be valid (Martos 44).
Marriage is one of the most important human relationships and the whole human race would have to agree that nobody to date; has been able to live this relationship satisfactorily.