Senior Citizen Helen Shabangu Marries 9-Year-Old Boy Saneie Masilela… For The Second Time [Video]

The wedding of Saneie Masilela and Helen Shabangu may at first glance give new meaning to the term “cougar” based upon the age gap. Since he is nine years old, and she’s 53 years his senior at age 62, the term “saber tooth tiger” might be more appropriate. But it turns out there may be a little bit more to the story than the headline.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, if you think this marriage is weird, then you should check out the top 10 redneck wedding photos. There is also a bizarre new trend that has brides and bridesmaids mooning the camera for their wedding photos.

This particular wedding stretches the limits of what people may consider normal for an age gap. The world’s youngest groom was married to his senior citizen bride with about 100 guests in attendance. The rest of the village apparently considered the entire wedding to be “sickening” and expressed their disgust, according to Helen:

“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.”

The reason why nothing changed in their lives is because Saneie and Helen were honoring their South African heritage, where tradition has an older woman marrying a young boy in order to please their ancestors. The second wedding only occurred because their culture requires the wedding to place twice — once at each participant’s house. Since the two were married for the sake of tradition, they do not live together nor do they plan on having a sexual relationship.

Still, the nine-year-old boy does admit he loves the older woman in his own way:

“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.”

Some people might be offended by a 62-year-old woman marrying a nine-year-old boy to honor a tradition, but Americans can hardly act high and mighty considering that Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris have a 60 year age gap — and they’re actually married for real. Even big stars like Harrison Ford and wife Calista Flockheart are 22 years apart. But the biggest marriage age gap record in the world apparently belongs to a man named Ahmed Muhamed Dore, who at 112 years married a 17-year-old bride.

What do you think about the wedding of Saneie Masilela and Helen Shabangu?