Brazilian couple breaks world record: Love is a timeless, far-reaching force that joins together souls against all odds. For a Brazilian couple married for over 84 years and blessed with more than 100 grandchildren, love becomes an even more abstract concept. Manoel and Maria were wed in 1940 at the chapel of Boa Ventura, Ceará, Brazil. Brazil had not won a FIFA World Cup, and there was no such thing as a modern electronic computer. The world back then was vastly different.
Brazilian couple Story
Their story began in 1936 when Manoel was in the Almeida region of Boa Viagem collecting a shipment of rapaduras, a traditional Brazilian confection. It was there that he encountered Maria for the first time. Theirs, however, was not to be a love-at-first-sight relationship. In 1940, another fortuitous journey rekindled their romance; Manoel declared with conviction that Maria was the only woman for him. Maria agreed, and that was the dawn of their life together.
Brazilian couple breaks world record: Rising above the odds
Initially, proud Maria being her mother’s daughter was quite hesitant about the choice of Manoel, who had to prove his worth to her family. He soon set about building a future for them. After convincing the approval of her family, the couple got married and set out to begin living their lives together.
For many years, they toiled hard in the burning sun farming rolled tobacco for the sustenance of their ever-growing family. They had 13 children, who later widened the family tree with 55 grandchildren, 54 great-grandchildren, and 12 great-great-grandchildren.
In old age, Manoel and Maria now have a peaceful life. Manoel mostly sleeps during the day because of his old age but every evening, he sits with Maria in the living room to tune in to the rosary prayer on the radio before he watches the telecasted masses with her.
His family constantly says that the secret to a long marriage is love, which Maria says. “And that is something even if the best computer could calculate!”
The Guinness World Record was proven by LongeviQuest with the help of their large family. While the record for the longest living couple was held by Manoel and Maria, the record for the marriage with the longest duration between two different sexes holds another couple, David Jacob Hiller (b. 1789) and Sarah Davy Hiller (b. 1792), were married for 88 years and 349 days until Sarah passed away in 1898.
Before them, it was Herbert Fisher (USA, b. 1905) and Zelmyra Fisher (USA, b. 1907) whose marriage lasted 86 years and 290 days, giving them record-holding status until Herbert passed away on February 27, 2011.
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