The Catholic Church believes that God himself is the author of marriage and has created it for one man and one woman.

When a man and a woman marry they commit themselves to each other for the rest of their lives. This unique promise embodies the deepest longing of the human heart – to give oneself in total, mutual and faithful love to another.

On the basis of this promise, lifelong marriage is able to bring forth the very best in human beings because it is the source of so much hope and joy, and the context in which many people must also respond to the challenges and suffering of the human condition.

Marriage is also the natural basis of the family and thus of the care of children and the continuation of human society. Properly understood, marital love “demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving” (John Paul II).

Christian marriage and the Christian family build up the Church: for in the family the human person is not only brought into being and progressively introduced by means of education into the human community, but by means of the rebirth of baptism and education in the faith the child is also introduced into God’s family, which is the Church.

Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents. God Himself said: “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18) and “Who made man from the beginning male and female” (Matt. 19:4). Wishing to share with man a certain special participation in His own creative work, He blessed male and female, saying: “Increase and multiply” (Gen. 1:28).