ABSTRACT
Constitutional concern about the separation of church and state, political concern about the presence of threatening religious behaviour and unsettling religious beliefs, social concern about the establishment and growth of alien religious communities within otherwise secular states and personal concern about religious freedom and individual religious rights have become widespread in academic writing and research. One dominant line, which has shaped European family law, is a straight horizontal line: an historical timeline stretching from the Canon law of a distant past to the secular family law of modern Europe. In the regulation of marriage, there is another significant point in the historical timeline which further confirmed a break with religion: the introduction of civil marriage. The campaign for same-sex marriage has not only demonstrated just how much many people and groups care about marriage, albeit for very different reasons, but it has also highlighted the extent to which it remains closely enmeshed with religion.
