Bear with me as I quote from Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pp. 549:
" Do we need sacraments? You can't unite men in a religion unless they share visible symbols or sacraments keeping them together. Mankind's salvation requires sacraments. They suit man's nature: he comes to know the spiritual world that only mind can grasp by way of the physical world he perceives with his senses. They also suit man's state after sin: he has subjected himself to an affection for the physical, and the remedies he needs must be applied to the place where the wound is. And finally they suit man's leanings toward external activities, offering him salutary alternatives to superstitious observances and worship of idols. It is true that purely external practices are not of much use, but sacramental practices are not purely external: they signify and cause something spiritual. And though Christ's sufferings are enough to save man, that doesn't make sacraments unnecessary. It is Christ's sufferings that give them their efficacy, and which they apply to men: All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death.
Sacraments were not needed in the state of innocence either as remedies for sin or as means of achieving knowledge adn grace in the soul. Though Adam needed grace in that state, he acquired it spiritually and invisibly, not throught external perceptible signs. but after Adam's sin, the highest parts of man's sould need to receive their perfection through the physical world. Marriage, it is true, was instituted in the state of innocence, but for the sake of its natural function, not as a church just as everthing else thta proceeded Christ prefigured him. . . ."
This state of innocence, really no need of a marriage and there was no marriage mentioned. No rules of marriage, no commandment to marry. "Heterosexual union and procreation are not definitive factors of being human." "They have two responsibilities; procreation and dominion as "male and female". It is in the totality of "male and female" that the responsibility for procreation exists. That totality does not necessarily imply that all, individual males and female must procreate. It is human relationality and not procreation that highlights the uniqueness of humankind in creation, as created in "the image of God"." Considering the often cited biblical texts on homosexuality.
The emphasis here is the "image of God" that not only relates to virtues and vices as in other threads in this forum; it is also about spirit, about morality about what the Bible is all about, the human condition. I took a class on Revelation from a Catholic priest with a Ph.D in theology and he taught that heaven is on earth. Life is what you make of it. It is relational. Your life effects others so your morality, other's morality, is what makes you life on earth, heaven or hell.
So there is no where in the Bible that orders up marriage. There are verses about the relational aspect of marriage. There are some marriage ceremonies. There is symbolism about marriage. Pick up a concordance and research marriage in the Bible.
