Call it a November-December romance. A 106-year-old man and an 81-year-old woman were married in a city in southeastern China, a state news agency reported Saturday.
Pan Xiting met his bride Chen Adi eight years ago, and she has taken care of him since then, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Their former spouses died years ago.
"Now, we are a family and we will never separate from each other until death," Pan was quoted as saying after the civil ceremony in the port city of Wenzhou.
There was a small hiccup during the process of arranging the latest nuptials: "We were told that we needed to show our residence cards to get married, but Chen's has been lost for a long time," Pan said. Local officials relented after getting to know the couple's story.
This illustration is NOT of the happy groom. But it is of a 106-year-old man. This is Guo Cairu practising Tai Chi on a community square in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu Province. Source: Yahoo
"We believe that Madam Chen means more than a companion to Mr. Pan and we hope they will have a happy married life," said Zheng Guangliang, deputy director of the Lucheng District civil affairs bureau.
The couple is among the oldest to have ever married. In 2002, Francois Fernandez, 96, and Madeleine Francineau, 94, exchanged vows at the rest home Le Foyer du Romarin, Clapiers, France - giving them a total aggregate in years of 190, according to the Guinness Book of World Records - three more than Chen and Pan.
© 2007 The Associated Press.
