From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
1) “The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament.”
2) The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not purely a human institution. God is the author of marriage. Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: to leave, to give oneself to another, and the two become one—in union and communion in love, trust, openness, fidelity and understanding.—a bond that is meant to be permanent.
3) The union of man and woman has always been threatened by discord, a spirit of domination, infidelity, jealousy, and conflicts that can escalate into hatred and separation. According to faith this disorder we notice so painfully does not stem from the nature of man and woman, nor from the nature of their relationship but from sin. To heal the wounds of sin man and woman need the help of grace that God in His infinite mercy never refuses..
4) ”Marriage is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is,
on their will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually and
definitively, in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful lives.”
5) “Since marriage establishes the couple in a public state of life in the Church, it is fitting that its celebration be public in the framework of a liturgical celebration, before the priest (or a witness authorized by the Church), the witnesses, and the assembly of the faithful.”
6) ”Unity, indissolubility, and openness to fertility are essential to marriage.
Polygamy is incompatible with the unity of marriage; divorce separates
what God has joined together; the refusal of fertility turns married life
away from its ‘supreme gift,’ the child.”
7) The church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that “makes the marriage.” If free consent is lacking there is no marriage. The consent by which the spouses mutually give and receive one another is sealed by God Himself forming a covenant that is permanent.
8) “Married love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter – appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul. It demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility.”
9) The Christian home is the place where children receive the first understanding and example of the faith. Parents are the first and most important educators of their children in the matter of religion.
Quotations and materials taken from Catechism of the Catholic Church, pp,400, 406-407, 409, 410, 414