Marriage - a social construct? A religious oath? Devotion?

I never cared about getting married till around the time I graduated high school. However, growing up in a christian faith, I was taught that marriage takes three: Yourself, your partner, and god. I believed this with every fiber of my being too. For most of my life, I was a devout christian, who would argue with anyone of any faith that they needed to repent.

At one point, my older sister was engaged and planning a wedding with an athiest as their "minister". My mom and I both told her she couldn't get married with an atheist minister because "god created marriage and someone who does not worship god cannot bring people together in his name." My entire life, marriage was a biblical concept and you could not be married unless you were a christian.

When I moved out of my parents home at 17, I was still a devout christian and had a side quest to convert students at my college. But, college opened my eyes. I met pagans, witches, satanists, atheists, and so many other people from different religious backgrounds and I learned things from them. They were good people by choice, not because they feared burning in hell. They made me feel more welcome than any church did, more than my own family did. And slowly, the effects of the church's brainwash slowly began to fade. I started questioning what I believed.

Since then, a lot of beliefs have changed. Some of my beliefs I've always had, but a lot are new. My stance on marriage has changed a lot though. I did research on different religions and practices, some that are older than Christianity. I learned that marriage is not just a biblical principal, it's also a social construct, its a religious oath in many cultures. It's a sign of devotion to your significant other. Marriage has been around a lot longer than christianity. It was around in the peak of the greco-roman empire when the old gods were still worshipped. It was something that witches did and had rituals for. The norse pagans had it. The Egyptians had it. Marriage was and has always been and universal concept, different cultures just do it differently.

In modern day, as more people turn from religion, marriage is becoming more of a social construct to bring in benefits, such as tax benefits. Two years ago I would've scoffed at the idea of marriage belonging to other cultures, and now I'm rolling my eyes at my mother wanting me to have a christian wedding ceremony (because I am legally married but we didn't have a ceremony yet. We're saving that part.) I can't wait to tell my mom that I'm likely having a pagan/witch wedding to fit my religious beliefs now. Marriage may be social construct with religious undertones and symbolic for your devotion, but I'm still doing my way.