In the RC Church, Marriage wasn't even a Sacrament until about 700 years ago. Becoming a priest or living a celibate life was considered far more "holy." Who do YOU think?

hahahahahahah. No. Family and marriage is the base state in which touches almost every Catholic. It is in this state that experience of God must be maintained and held sacred. That a priest is holy is the result of his growing in holiness within a family. His ordination gives him a special role in teaching and liturgy. However, he is first a fellow Christian, and secondarily a priest. Any priest who thinks that he is ipso facto more holy than a good parent or a loyal child is --how best to say this --- full of himself.

One development in Christianity about 700 years ago was the idea that "ordinary" people could be holy. It was enthusiastically adopted by the Reformation, but was marred by the view of sinfullness that refused to accept that a person could become holy by the grace of God. Catholics resisted the expression of individual holiness as part of its effort to resist the Reformation. Holiness of the religious life was emphasized and that of the layity played down.

Those days our gone. It is the purpose of the Church to sanctify the world by being in the world and of it. We are not the pessimist who see the world as full of evil that cannot be conquered by Jesus and his disciples. The primary way Christianity is in the world is not the liturgy presided over by the clergy, nor the prayers of the religious, but the daily, faithful life within the Christian family.

I can't give an exposition of the Sacrament and its origin, but 700 years might be the start of its modern form, but not the start of the sacrament. Perhaps it is similar to the Sacrament of Reconciliation which had its modern form of frequent use started back around then, but has deep roots back to the acts and words of Jesus and the reconciling apostsy during the time of persecution.