God instituted marriage at the beginning of man’s creation. “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). "And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Gen 1:28).
The Catholic Church’s definition of marriage, as stated in the Catechism, reflects this: “A covenant or partnership of life between a man and woman, which is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children”.
