Editing Civil marriage (section)

===In other European countries===
[[File:A cauple wait for wedding.jpg|thumb|A couple waiting to get married in the town of [[Alghero]] on the island of [[Sardinia]], [[Italy]]]]

Many European countries had institutions similar to [[common-law marriage]]. However, the [[Catholic Church]] forbade [[clandestinity (canon law)|clandestine marriage]] at the [[Fourth Lateran Council]] (1215), which required all marriages to be announced in a church by a priest. In 1566, the edict of the [[Council of Trent]] was proclaimed denying [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholics]] any form of marriage not executed in a religious ceremony before a priest and two witnesses.

The [[Protestant]] pastor and theologian of [[Geneva]], [[John Calvin]], decreed that in order for a couple to be considered married they must be registered by the state in addition to a church ceremony.

In 1792, with the [[French Revolution]], religious marriage ceremonies in [[France]] were made secondary to civil marriage.  Religious ceremonies could still be performed, but only for couples who had already been married in a civil ceremony. [[Napoleon]] later spread this custom throughout most of Europe. In present-day France, only civil marriage has legal validity. A religious ceremony may be performed after or before the civil union, but it has no legal effect.

In [[Germany]], the [[Napoleonic code]] was valid only in territories conquered by Napoleon. With the fall of his empire, civil marriage in Germany began to die out. However, certain sovereign German states introduced civil marriages, which were either obligatory (like the French model) or optional, with either a religious or civil ceremony being accepted. Already before 1848, the Grand-Duchy of [[Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach]] enacted optional civil marriages, followed by the German republics of [[Free City of Frankfurt| the Free City of Frankfurt upon Main]] (1850, obligatory), [[Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg]] (1851, optional) and [[Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck]] (1852, optional). German Grand-Duchies such as [[Grand Duchy of Oldenburg|Oldenburg]] (1852/55, optional), [[Grand Duchy of Baden|Baden]] (1860), and [[Grand Duchy of Hesse|Hesse]] (1860) as well as the [[Kingdom of Württemberg]] (1863) followed suit.<ref>Julius Schoeps, "Emanzipation der Herzen – oder: Der Fall Ferdinand Falkson", in: ''PreußenJahrBuch: Ein Alamanch'' [published on the occasion of the Projekt Preussen 2001], Museumspädagogischer Dienst Berlin (MD Berlin) in collaboration with the Landesverband der Museen zu Berlin and Museumsverband des Landes Brandenburg (ed.), Berlin: MD Berlin, 2000, pp. 52–56, here p. 56. {{ISBN|3-930929-12-0}}.</ref> Civil marriages enabled [[interfaith marriage]]s as well as marriages between spouses of different Christian denominations.  After the [[unification of Germany]] in 1871, the [[Reichstag (German Empire)|Reichstag]] adopted a bill initiated by Chancellor [[Otto von Bismarck]] as the "Civil Marriage Law" in 1875 (see: [[Kulturkampf]]); since then, only civil marriages have been recognized in Germany. Religious ceremonies may still be performed at the couple's discretion. Until December 31, 2008, religious marriages could not be performed until the couple had first married in a civil ceremony.