Ebbie - "Marriage is an affirmation of religiosity, it seems to me- why did he bother?"

I can't agree with that. I know of plenty of good marriages where religion had nothing to do with the reason for coming together or for staying together.

Hear, hear. Including my parents and my maternal grandparents - none of them religious in the slightest. And yet committed to their marriages as marriages, and motivated to make it work and keep making it work.