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)