A 19-year-old Indonesian woman finds out after marrying a man aged 57, that she attended a previous wedding of his when she was just nine years old. - Photo: SCMP composite/QQ.com
JAKARTA: In a strange twist of fate, an Indonesian woman has discovered that the man she married was a groom she had met at a wedding when she was a child.
Renata Fadhea, 24, from Bangka Island, Indonesia, realised after marrying her husband, who is 38 years her senior, that she had met him 15 years before.
The couple, who had lost contact over the years, reconnected a decade and a half later.
Fadhea shared her unusual experience on TikTok, which quickly garnered more than 7.1 million views.
The viral video included a group photo from her husband’s previous wedding in 2009, where Fadhea, then a nine-year-old girl, stood near her now 62-year-old husband.
In a follow-up video, she explained that she had attended that wedding as a guest, and that the pair were distant relatives.
Her husband is her aunt’s nephew, adding a further twist to their story.
Although they did not know each other, their paths crossed again in 2019, they married in 2020 and welcomed a child a year later.
She discovered the coincidence while looking through her husband’s second wedding album in 2019.
Fadhea said her husband and his second wife had separated in 2011, so she had not been the cause of the break-up.
He had no children from his second marriage, and just one child from his first.
In Indonesia, early marriage is common. A quarter of women marry before the age of 18, according to a Unicef report.
Before 2019, there was no minimum age limit for marriage under Indonesian law, therefore many girls under 16 were permitted to marry.
As a result of poverty, limited education and for religious reasons, many Indonesian girls are married off by their parents before the legal age, leading to early childbirth.
Some even become victims of domestic violence and divorce.
A number of online observers questioned the age difference between Fadhea and her husband.
“See? As long as you have money, it’s fine, even with a 38-year age difference,” one said.
“I don’t understand, but I hope he does not get divorced this time,” said another person.
Fadhea said that, despite their age difference, she and her husband are well-matched and lead a happy life.
Other online observers gave their blessings.
“Met by chance when a child, reunited as a grown-up, it’s fate,” one person commented.
“Her husband’s face was old, but now it seems to look younger,” said another. - South China Morning Post
