I would like to add a Biblical quote to this discussion, the very first mention of marriage in the Bible,
before the Fall of Man into sin, mind you!
Quote:
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Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:24, KJV)
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Though it was Adam who said it, in my King James Bible, there's a heading over the three verses from which this is taken: 'God institutes marriage'. Originally, nothing more was needed to make a marital bond binding but the union, exclusively and obviously physically, of two persons. Perhaps Tolkien was taking his story, which is intended to be prehistoric for our present world, back to the original principle of marriage that is accounted in Genesis. He would most certainly have been familiar with the story of creation as told there.
Another sociological aspect that has not yet been mentioned here is the history of ‘common-law’ marriages, which were traditionally considered legally binding without a formal ceremony or document. Perhaps someone knows more details about that than I do.