I have a question for any historians who may see this:

In pre-modern Japan, specifically the turning point of the Sengoku to the Edo period (~1600 CE), how did the process of marriage work?

Doing my own research I'm getting a lot of hits about marriage customs and traditions, especially amongst the nobility, but I don't need details about ceremonies or common wedding gifts or anything like that. What I'm interested in is, was there some legal aspect of it, especially for commoners? Did they have to go somewhere to register or sign a contract or have it witnessed, or was it just a "Hey, we're married now!" agreement between two consenting adults?

Like… if two people, with no family to worry about, were lovers and already living together, and they decided to get married… were they just married, like, automatically, due to making that decision together? Could they just start calling themselves husband and wife, or did they have to do something specific to make that designation real?

I'm having some real trouble doing the research for this on my own, I'm not getting the answer I'm looking for.

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