TAIPEI: A 96-year-old temple keeper has become Taiwan’s oldest groom on record after marrying a woman less than one third his age, a report said today.

Lin Chung, who runs a Taoist temple in south Taiwan’s Tainan county, is the talk of town after wedding a 30-year-old woman from mainland China’s central province of Hunan, said the Taipei-based Apple Daily. Lin, who has two adopted children although he was single, told the paper that he was “instructed” by the gods to go to Hunan three years ago to find his future wife.

He recently decided to tie the knot despite strong objections from his 68-year-old adopted son, who suspected that the elderly man was conned, the report said. “I must have a companion in my old days... I’ve never been married before so why can’t I marry her? (My son) is unfilial,” he was quoted as saying. Lin is currently applying for his wife to come to Taiwan to live with him, the report said.

In 2009, 13,000 Taiwanese married people from China, Hong Kong and Macau, accounting for 60 per cent of island’s international marriages.