A
teenage boy has married his 73-year-old lover in a remote village on
Indonesia’s Sumatra, officials said, after the unconventional couple threatened
a double suicide if their match was thwarted.
The
romance began when septuagenarian Rohaya Binti Kiagus Muhammad Jakfar took care
of her neighbour Selamet Riyadi, 15, who was suffering from malaria, the local
village chief said. “Selamet is too young to marry but we married them anyway
because he threatened to commit suicide, also to “avoid the sin of adultery” village
chief Cik Ani, told AFP.
“Since
the boy is an underage, we have decided to carry out the marriage privately,”
he said. Riyadi’s father died several years ago and the boy was not properly
cared for by his mother, who has remarried, Ani said. Rohaya has been married
twice before, both times to divorcees and has at least one child from the
marriages, but this time “she got a virgin,” Ani added.
“He said he was madly in love. We love each other,” Rohaya told reporters after the wedding. The video shows the unlikely couple reciting their vows in front of their relatives and friends. Under Indonesian law, the legal age for marriage is 19 for a man and 16 for a woman.
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