Ahh, now I see why are you confused. Sorry, but you are wrong. Marriage is an inalienable right. Obtaining the license means recognition by the government for those precious benefits you and I discussed. Benefits like rights of survivorship, parentage, Social Security laws, etc.
Example; a 21 year old man is betrothed and married to a 10 year old girl. No sex, just marriage in their church. The girl lives with her parents with supervised contact until she's of appropriate age whereupon a marriage license is obtained. Were they married before the marriage license was obtained? Yes. Was their marriage recognized for legal purposes, Social Security, etc by the State or Federal government? No, not until the marriage license was obtained and signed.
Some states have "common law" marriages, but that makes things murky. Again the difference is being married in accordance with their beliefs and being married for legal reasons. A lot of confusion comes out because the term "marriage" is used for both cases but obviously there is a major difference between the two.