Wiktionary
n. A marriage performed by a government official instead of by a member of the clergy.
WordNet
n. a marriage performed by a government official rather than by a clergyman
Wikipedia
Civil marriage is a marriage performed, recorded, and recognized by a government official.
Usage examples of "civil marriage".
I notice that respectable people, who would not call on anybody who lives in open sin, are quite willing to call on people who have had only a civil marriage.
There, after a few days, if you like, the civil marriage shall be celebrated without pomp or ceremony.
The Liberals, he said, were Freemasons, bad people, wanting to hang priests, to institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of illegitimate children as equal to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the country up into a federal system that would take power away from the supreme authority.
The Church of his childhood did not recognize his civil marriage, or his divorce, or the Anglican baptism upon which Helen had insisted for Marianne.
Since Maria, like the bridegroom, was a Protestant, they only had a civil marriage.
A civil marriage was no marriage in the eyes of the Church, and while non-Catholics were allegedly the object of pity, there had been so few of them in her life that she found the idea rather exotic.
We will have a civil marriage here in Spain and the church wedding at Weltevreden.