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 love.

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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.

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The Christian home is the place where children receive the first proclamation of the faith. For this reason, the family home is rightly called “the domestic church,” a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian charity.

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The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life.

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Each spouse is to help the other become a saint.

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Catechism of the Catholic Church: 1569-1666