Marriage (Skyrim)

Marriage is a gameplay element in. After obtaining the Amulet of Mara, the Dragonborn has the option to engage in either a heterosexual or homosexual marriage with an eligible NPC. Although there is no discrimination based on race, there are currently no eligible Khajiit, Bosmer, male Redguard, or male Altmer. Those that can be married generally require that a specific task be completed beforehand. Whether the partner is a merchant or not, they are able to purchase and sell general goods, also allowing the Dragonborn to collect a daily portion of his/her profits from their "work". Every 24 hours, the player can ask their Spouse how their business is faring to receive a share of 100 gold. If the share is not collected, the gold accumulates.

Obtaining the Amulet of Mara

 * An Amulet of Mara can be bought from a priest named Maramal for 200 . He can be found at either the Bee and Barb or the Temple of Mara in Riften.
 * Can be found as random loot.
 * Can be found in a tent on a beach north of Dawnstar directly behind the Dawnstar Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary.
 * Received for completing The Book of Love questline.

Marriage must still be discussed with Maramal before proposing, if the amulet is obtained without talking to him first.

Proposing
Maramal must be spoken to about marriage in Skyrim before any dialogue related to the Amulet of Mara shows up. The new dialogue is unlocked with certain NPCs if the player is both wearing the amulet and has met the requirement relating to them, usually a quest. The Dragonborn can then express their wish to marry the person. Once that is done, they can speak to Maramal at the Temple of Mara about arranging the wedding.

Wedding Ceremony
The time to start a ceremony takes approximately 24 hours. Maramal alludes to the ceremony time being constrained between dawn and dusk, however the ceremony can happen at any given hour of the day. During the ceremony the player has one last chance to affirm the marriage before the ceremony proceeds.

NPCs for whom the player has previously completed quests may appear at the wedding ceremony as guests. If the player already owns any houses, then the corresponding housecarl(s) will also be present.

If the player misses his Wedding Ceremony, they can approach the intended partner and ask for another chance. Maramal will then agree to host another ceremony, the next day.

Married life


After the Marriage, (once you either track them down again, or catch them before they leave the temple), the partner will ask where the Dragonborn wants to live, giving him/her the choice between the partner's house or in the Dragonborn's house, if applicable.

The behavior of the spouse changes from the single character once married. Tone of voice and behavior changes and will often refer to the Dragonborn as "love" or "dear" from that point on. However, if the Dragonborn marries one of his housecarls, the Dragonborn will still be referred to as his/her Thane using subordinate dialogue.

It should also be noted, that apparently only Followers get unique voiceovers for the married dialog. Many, if not all, NPC-only marriage candidates share a common voice, with the same lines. For females, it seems that Ysolda does the marital line voiceovers, even if a different actress does the normal lines. This can be particularly odd if you console-hack a random female NPC to be marriagable, and you get a normally old scratchyvoiced woman talking like a much younger woman. Even some Followers such as Jordis, seem to share the voice lines. See Voice Cast (Skyrim)   for a reasonable guestimate of whether you're going to get the same person for a different spouse's voice.

If the spouse is the Dragonborn's housecarl, "their house" is the applicable house of the Dragonborn that they are responsible for.

If the Dragonborn's spouse relocates to a different city from where they originated, to live in one of the Dragonborn's houses, the spouse may indicate that s/he wishes to become a shop owner to keep occupied while the Dragonborn is adventuring.

If the Dragonborn wishes to relocate the spouse to a different home, (either another one of the Dragonborn's houses or the spouse's own original home), this can be done so at any time via a dialogue option.

Once a day, the Dragonborn can ask their spouse to cook something. The spouse will make a homemade meal that increases the regeneration of magicka, health, and stamina.

If the Dragonborn sleeps in the house with the spouse, the Dragonborn will receive a temporary bonus called Lover's Comfort that boosts the rate of skill-learning by 15% for 8 hours. However, this bonus cannot be obtained if Lover Stone is activated (a workaround can be used with the Aetherial Crown), or if the Blood Ritual has been taken to become a Werewolf.

If the DLC Hearthfire is available, marriage can also include children. The Dragonborn's adopted child will also be adopted by the spouse, as well as instantly move into the house where the Dragonborn's new son or daughter is living. This adds another dialogue option with the spouse allowing the Dragonborn to ask how the children are, it also adds generic dialogue to the child where an activity will be mentioned that they both did together.

Note: Because spouses act as vendors, the Dragonborn can buy and sell items from them. However, if the spouse is asked to follow the Dragonborn, the spouse will only sell items from his/her inventory until they part ways. Spouses only act as merchants in the marital home, meaning items cannot be sold in a dungeon, to reduce the carry weight, for instance.

Forcing marriage
Players can force the marriage dialog option to appear on NPCs by opening the console, targeting the desired NPC, and typing the command "addfac 19809 1". This could possibly cause issues with NPCs who were not originally intended to have this option.

A friendship must have been started with the NPC in the form of a quest, as their disposition (which is a hidden stat) needs to be of a certain level in order for them to recognize the Amulet of Mara. Alternately the command "setrelationshiprank player 4" can be used after adding the person to the marriage faction. It is not possible to marry several of the people in the game, such as Ulfric Stormcloak.

Divorce (PC)
Trying to breakup with partners is, for some reason, impossible without the console. Searching for help "breakup" 4 will bring up dialogue and quests that show reference to what must have been the original intention of breaking up with a spouse.

Option one
The relationshipbreakup quest can be used. Use the console to enter these commands: (This is just formality to reset the "marriage" quest.) The above will prevent the player from having to kill his spouse, although they will comment on how much even the thought of him makes their blood boil. Untested, but possibly setrelationshiprank player 4 can fix this
 * completequest 0007431B
 * resetquest 0007431B
 * resetquest 00021382 

Option two

 * The spouse must be killed
 * The console command Setstage RelationshipMarriage 10 must then be used
 * The console commands resurrect should next be used on the ex-spouse (and eventually the command setrelationshiprank player 4 on him/her to keep the relationship status obtained with the NPC related quests)
 * The old Amulet of Mara doesn't need to be dropped or sold.

Option three

 * The Amulet of Mara necklace must be retained, or another one must be found.
 * Any wanted items should be taken from the current spouse before starting this process.
 * The following commands must be used, after targeting the spouse:
 * removefac 51596
 * player.removefac C6472
 * resetquest 74793
 * resetquest 21382
 * setstage 74793 10
 * The old spouse will immediately exit the house and return to their regular location.
 * 24 hours must be waited.

Bugs

 * Sometimes, the wedding ceremony won't actually start; your spouse, guests, and Maramal are at the temple at the proper time, but all they say is the generic congrats and (in your spouse's case) express excitement and you won't be able to proceed, forcing the quest to fail after a few in-game hours.  It is currently unknown what triggers this or if there's any fix.
 * Sometimes, Maramal will not show up at the temple until he is talked to at the Bee and Barb.
 * A bug can occur in which a scripted NPC interrupts the wedding if the player chooses to wait overnight in the Temple of Mara. For example: the priestess of Azura might make the Dragonborn miss his wedding if he recently completed the The Black Star.
 * Some users playing as a male character may experience Vilkas chasing after them in Jorrvaskr trying to marry them, with his weapon drawn, and no actual action done by the player.
 * Some people that can be married, (such as Aela the Huntress), have no voice acting recorded for when they are asked to browse their merchandise. The subtitle will appear on screen and their lips still move but nothing will be heard.
 * When married to Camilla Valerius, Sven will still ask you to break up the relationship between Camilla and Feandal (the Love Triangle quest). You can still complete the quest even though you are married to her.
 * If Aela the Huntress is taken out to get married while on the quest to recover the Hircine totem, she will continue to follow the player but if he fast travels anywhere she will disappear and that quest will not be able to be completed since the totem must be found with her.
 * If a random companion quest is accepted and the quest requires killing a monster that has invaded a home, that home may be the player's. Upon entering the home no one will be there but the monster and the spouse will temporarily disappear from the game.
 * Sleeping in the same house with the partner may not result in the "Lover's Comfort" sleeping buff, only the standard "Well Rested" bonus.
 * With the Dragonborn add-on installed a new bug appeared: once married and agreed where to live, your spouse will never appear at home, but wander around his default location instead. (Tested with Mjoll, who enters The Bee and Barb instead of Honeyside) It can be fixed by making your spouse a follower before he/she leaves Riften and leave him/her in your home, then make him/her follower again and ask him/her for living somewhere else, leave him/her there and he/she will live there as normal.

Trivia

 * It is not possible to marry a Khajiit or a Bosmer of either gender legitimately, as there seems to be no possible characters to marry.
 * It also isn't possible to marry a male Redguard or a male Altmer.
 * To change the clothes of the partner, the console command equipitem can be used on him (e.g. equipitem 000d191f 1 for the Tavern Clothes) . The console command removeitem  1 can be used to remove items like a Pickaxe (000E3C16), or clothes specifically. Be mindful that every NPC (including followers) come with a set of standard clothing that are tagged as their 'outfit'. Even when removing these clothes through the console, the NPC will try to put on the standard outfit when not following the player, which can result in them being randomly nude while not following the player (e.g: waiting at their house, walking in the city).
 * You can also change your spouse's clothes on consoles if they are a follower by equipping them with items of better armor value and buying their normally-worn items in their shops. However when not following they might be nude.
 * You can kill your spouse when sacrificing to Boethiah during the quest Boethiah's Calling.
 * If you kill your spouse you cannot marry again without the use of console commands.
 * There are a number of potential marriage options cut from the game that still have related date included (but disabled) in the game files. Many of the ones that were cut seem to be ones that would have involved quite a bit more content to be added as they are more noteworthy in the game world, and it wouldn't make sense for NPCs to ignore the fact that they were married to the PC. Among those characters who seem to have been cut at some point in development are Vivienne Onis, Ingun Black-Briar, and Elisif the Fair.
 * Raven Rock dunmers cannot be married via console commands, while the nords of Skaal Village can be, but are bugged (tested with Yrsa, wife of Beor the Woodcutter, she never stayed at home but tried to return to Skaal Village)