I’ve only performed a few weddings in my ministerial career. Each one has been so much fun, though, because I always do custom ceremonies.
Today I did one which was really no ceremony at all. My mother married a fellow named Douglas, and it was simply an affirmation in the presence of witnesses that they had sworn a covenant before the Lord. The marriage certificate took longer. That was what they wanted.
It’s not so radically different from the very credentials upon which I performed the ceremony. You see, God is the only real Guarantor of such things in the first place. There may be some ancient social aspects, but we are so very far removed from that it almost makes no difference how you play that out. The only other element is satisfying the demands of civil government. My ordination is from an organization one step above an ordination mill. They understand it’s really nothing more than getting some kind of government approval for something which really isn’t any of the government’s business.
BTW, for folks who wish, I can write any custom ceremony for anyone. Just ask; I never charge for serving God.
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Whenever I hear of believers getting married (and more specifically, filing the papers for a marriage license) I remember an article I read several years back and a few years into my own marriage. It can still be found at http://originalintent.org/edu/marriage.php and discusses common law marriage in comparison to what might be termed statutory marriage. Have you ever looked into what authority is ceded to the state when one files for a marriage license? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.
The link you offered covers it well as a matter of American and Western civilization. As readers should know, this in itself is often a point of conflict, though it need not be so. Traveling back a little farther into the misty beginnings of human society, the whole point of marriage is proclaiming a measure of ownership over each other. That is, exclusive rights to sexual intimacy. Obviously, society gets involved because we have to obtain their support and recognition. Society provides the enforcement. They have to agree no one else can jump in and get some, as it were. If the rights are not exclusive, there’s no point in cohabitation and all the obligations of life attached to it.
Almost everything else in this question is a relatively modern invention. The whole business of state involvement is control and convenience of the state agents. In ancient times, the state would never presume to get involved in matters of child custody and property disposition. It would all be handled in the community, which has until recent times, been your own extended kin.