In the SA main text, Sexaholics Anonymous (aka the White Book) the sobriety definition is described as a
“a firm and clear bottom line” (page 2).
“not a relative matter that we define for ourselves” (pages 1 & 191).
The concept of “marriage as you understand marriage” promoted prior to the Cleveland Statement of Principle was neither firm nor clear. Rather it describes is a very “relative matter we define for ourselves” and one that can be defined and redefined at will. It would seem to refer to some sort of arrangement between any number of people with any combination of genders: in the SA literature there is no explicit definition of marriage as only 2 people, only use of the term “the spouse” indicating that sobriety in SA is within a monogamous marriage.
For the term marriage to be a “firm and clear bottom line” and not “a relative matter that we define for ourselves” it must have had a very specific meaning at the time the literature was written. The context of the times, the origins and history of SA, and our approved literature gives us much guidance as to what that meaning is.
The Cleveland Statement of Principle (aka Cleveland Clarification) merely removed any unintended ambiguity.