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.
Section 3 of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act 1996. Section 3, or the definition of marriage, of the law is the portion of the act that legally defines a marriage in terms of federal uses as the union explicitly of a woman and a man.