Wrinklies race death to wed

Wrinklies race death to wed

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara: Up to 500 elderly couples who have
been living-in-sin for as long as they care to remember will soon
be married off in a mass wedding in southern Central Timor
regency.

One 85-year-old couple is among those lucky enough to be
getting the late church blessing on Dec. 16 so they can celebrate
Christmas as husband and wife for the first time.

Some of the soon-to-be spouses are "very old" and others ill
from malnutrition, a local official said yesterday.

"The mass wedding will put the elderly back on the straight
and narrow before Death fetches them," provincial agency for
population chief Wilhelmus Lenggu told Antara.

The couples from isolated communities did not know official
marriage procedures and had formalized their relationships under
customs handed down from generation to generation.

The wedding will follow a recent ceremony for 2,128 younger
couples from the same communities, who were joined in wedlock in
Christian churches, to formalize their relationships.

State Minister of Population Haryono Suyono will act as
relative legally responsible for the wedding for all the elderly
couples. (pan)