Almost every tradition is currently in dispute about the boundaries of marriage, and the disputes are not the same dispute.
Same-sex marriage. In December 2023 the Vatican's doctrinal office published Fiducia Supplicans, permitting non-liturgical blessings of individuals in what it calls irregular situations, including same-sex couples, while restating that marriage is between a man and a woman and that nothing being blessed is a marriage. Within a month the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, led by Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, issued a joint statement that such blessings could not be carried out in Africa without causing scandal; the statement was published with the agreement of Pope Francis. The Church of England's General Synod approved Prayers of Love and Faith in the same month, again as blessings rather than marriages, and the GAFCON grouping of Anglican provinces declared itself in impaired communion over it. The United Methodist Church removed its prohibitions on same-sex weddings and on gay clergy at its 2024 General Conference, after a quarter of its United States congregations had already left to form the Global Methodist Church. In Judaism, the Reform and Reconstructionist movements officiate; the Conservative movement's law committee approved same-sex ceremonies in 2012 while its 2006 responsum had already split on the underlying question; Orthodox authorities do not. Civil law has moved faster than most religious bodies: the United States Supreme Court required recognition nationally in 2015, and the Supreme Court of India declined to in 2023, unanimously on marriage itself and by three to two on whether civil unions were constitutionally required.
Interfaith marriage. Islamic law as classically stated permits a Muslim man to marry a Jewish or Christian woman and does not permit a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man; a minority of contemporary scholars contest the asymmetry and the majority position holds. Orthodox Judaism does not recognise intermarriage and the Conservative movement does not officiate at it, while Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis increasingly do; the question is bound up with a demographic argument about continuity that both sides deploy. Catholic law permits marriage to a baptised non-Catholic with permission and to an unbaptised person with a dispensation. Israel and Lebanon have no civil marriage, so couples of different religions travel abroad to marry and have that marriage registered on return.
Caste and lineage. Hindu marriage negotiation still commonly observes caste and gotra exogamy. India's Special Marriage Act of 1954 exists precisely to allow marriages that religious personal law would not solemnise, and it is used heavily.