Define marriage and trace its evolution from sacrament to contract in Nepal.

Marriage is the socially and legally recognized union of two persons creating the status of spouses — with mutual rights of cohabitation, consortium and maintenance, and the family-law property consequences. Its definition travels across three worlds: The sociological: the institution by which a household, kinship alliance and legitimate offspring are constituted — "a more or less durable union between one or more men and one or more women" (Westermarck's classic, quoted for definitional range); The classical Hindu view: marriage a samskara (sacrament) — an indissoluble religious rite joining the parties for dharma, praja and samsara (the vivaha's seven steps); the wife the ardhangini (half the husband's body), the union sacred not contractual; The modern legal view: a civil status constituted by consent under statutory conditions and proved by registration — dissoluble by the statute's remedies. The Muluki Civil Code, 2074's design: two persons, free consent, the statutory conditions, the prescribed formalities — the sacrament-to-contract evolution complete in law, though most Nepali families still marry religiously as well. Marriage's double character in Nepal: performed religiously/socially for most families, but legally constituted only under the Code's conditions-and-registration regime.