Photos:9-year-old boy renews marital vows with his 62 year old wifey

In 2013, a certain 8-year-old South African
school boy made headlines for marrying a 61
year old South African woman to “make
ancestors happy”.

The boy – now 9 years old – Saneie Masilela
is the world’s youngest groom for the second
time after remarrying the 62-year-old woman
he married last year.

Although other villagers and onlookers
describe the nuptials as “sickening”, the
young groom dressed in a silver tuxedo says
he did it again to make the marriage
“official”.

No minding the 53-year-age gap, they
repeated their vows a year later in front of
100 guests. His bride Helen Shabangu is a
mother of 5, with children aged between 28
and 38 years old.

Both families claim the wedding is a simply
“ritual” after the young school boy was told
by his dead ancestors to wed last year.
The boy however hopes he would have a
proper wedding to a woman his age in the
future.
“I told my mother that I wanted to get
married because I really did want to.

I’m happy that I married Helen – but I
will go to school and study hard.
When I’m older I will marry a lady my
own age. I chose Helen because I love
her and, although we don’t live together
all the time, we meet at the dumping
site where my mother works regularly.”

Helen also told reporters that she is excited
that Saneie chose her. “One day Sanele would
grow normally and have family of his own
and get married one day, all this ceremony is
for making ancestors happy. We are playing.”
she said.
The young boy’s mother is also fine with the
wedding, telling journalists;

“He was just happy to get married, very
excited and was not embarrassed about
it. So much so he wanted to do it again.
After the wedding last year people keep
asking them question like will they live
together, sleep together, have babies
but I keep telling them that after the
wedding everything went back to normal
– nothing changed.

Sanele moved to Venda not long after
the wedding because he wanted to learn
a new language, but they are very close.
Our families are very close.
It was nice celebrate with a wedding
once more, it was after all a calling
from the ancestors.

By doing this we made the ancestors
happy. If we hadn’t done what my son
had asked then something bad would
have happened in the family.”