decades apart, when love reunites

There was an interesting article in the Weekend Australian Magazine of 20-21 December 2008 by Kate Legge about couples who reunited after decades apart, returning to each other after another lifetime of separate marriages etc, and rekindling their first love.



An excerpt

Karl Mineur’s sister remembers finding her brother’s initials carved next to Marion’s inside the wooden lids of desks that had serviced thousands of students at Sheffield High. The couple met as 13-year-olds through their fathers, both separated, who lived as neighbours in this tiny Tasmanian township. Karl’s stepdad was Dutch, Marion’s father was German. Her mother lived in Hobart and she insisted Marion finish school there. Distance killed the courtship. “We had no electricity, let alone a telephone,” Karl recalls, “and I was lousy with a pen.” Marion had no money for stamps.

They both married other people. Karl moved to Brisbane, working as a roofer; Marion was living in Melbourne, where she split with her first husband. They have two kids. After buying a new computer she registered with the website Friends Reunited. Karl’s sister was registered too, so Marion emailed her seeking contact details for Karl. Later that evening she phoned him. “She said, ‘Do you remember me?’ I said, ‘Of course I do.’” They spoke for six hours.

“I just had such a good gut feeling. We have such similar backgrounds because we knew each other so long ago. The old heart hoped for something good and it has been,” he says.

Six months on she’d moved to Brisbane with her son, leaving her teenage daughter, who wanted to stay put with her peer group, in the care of her ex-husband. Soon she fell pregnant. Now their toddler son is more than a year old and they plan to move back where they began. “We’ve got the most incredible support from both our families now,” Marion says.

Unfortunately, things don't always work out, especially in some cultures. Reported in the Guardian

Octogenarian forced to seek out lost father for wedding approval

Robert Tait
The Guardian, Saturday 20 December 2008

After a life of spinsterhood, Setareh, an 80-year-old Iranian woman, assumed she was fated to see out her remaining days alone and was preparing to move into an old people's home for company.

When the boy-next-door from her youth suddenly reappeared and proposed, she thought her long-forgotten dreams of marriage were about to be fulfilled.

But Iran's laws require a father to grant permission to his daughter before she is allowed to marry. Now the lovestruck octogenarian has asked a court in Tehran to establish whether her father, who abandoned her when she was two, is dead or alive so that her wedding can go ahead.

The legal obstacle came to light when Setareh and her betrothed, Jamshid, tried to tie the knot at a registrar's office, only to be told the ceremony could not go ahead without either the written agreement or proof of death of her father.

It represented a cruel blow to the elderly couple, who had been childhood sweethearts but were forced to scrap plans to wed after Setareh's mother protested that it would lead to her being left alone. Reluctantly, Setareh resigned herself to living with her mother.

Appearing before Tehran's family court, Setareh, a former foreign languages teacher, explained that Jamshid subsequently married another woman who had since died. The pair had rekindled their affair just before Setareh was due to move into a care home. "Seeing Jamshid made my heart start beating faster and suddenly the passion of youth returned," she said. "When I heard him proposing to me once again, I thanked God for the second chance, because I had found another spur for the remaining days of my life."

She said her father had been forced into marrying her mother during the 1920s. The marriage was loveless and he walked out after Setareh was born. Neither mother nor daughter heard from him again.

The judge, Mahmoud Baghal Shirvan, asked the Iranian registrar's organisation to examine the father's status and pronounce whether he is dead or alive. He also asked officials to check whether he had passed through Iran's land, air or sea frontiers since abandoning his family. If the father is found to have died, the court is expected to permit Setareh to marry.

Her plight is an example of what campaigners say is systematic discrimination against women under Iranian law. But the state-linked Iranian Women's News Agency said women needed their father's permission to protect them from "emotional" marriage decisions.

One would think that at 80 years old, that part of the law would not be applicable. Poor Setareh, the law is an ass.

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Third day of 16 days off work, and I still haven't tidied the house.