A court in Switzerland has stopped the marriage of a 71-year-old woman to her 21-year-old lover after the pair met online and bonded over their love of rap music. According to a newspaper report, the Vaud cantonal court didn’t believe the pair were in love, describing their desired union as a “fraud” and ruling that the man, from Tunisia, simply wanted to live in Switzerland. But the Swiss pensioner, who said she met her 21-year-old boyfriend on the internet when he was just 18, insisted she had found her true soul mate. “We both like rap, walks in the countryside. We have the same ideas,” said the retired secretary, who was previously married to a man 13 years her junior. The unnamed woman took a five-day visit last year to Tunisia to visit her fiancé, who she had never previously met, along with his family, goat and sheep farmers. The couple then lodged their request to marry with the Swiss ambassador in Tunisia. However, a court refused the request at the end of April, considering that it was “emotional fraud with the aim of migration”, the Vaud civil registry office told the paper. Under Swiss law, couples wishing to marry must submit an application to the registry office in their place of residence which then decides whether the wedding can go ahead. The law stipulates that a couple may not marry “in order to circumvent laws on the admission and residence of foreign nationals”. Speaking to media the young Tunisian said the 50-year age gap “didn’t pose any problems” for him, admitting that he hadn’t “presented her to my friends”. “I don’t want to have children. I love her and I want to live with her,” he said. It was not known whether the woman intended to move to Tunisia to continue their relationship after the setback.
