Match Arranged in Sicily Stands Test of Time : Couple Chalks Up 80 Years of Marriage

He was 24 and she was 16, and the match was arranged in their native Sicily by their parents.

But the marriage endured. On Monday, Salvatore and Providenzia Caito of Northridge celebrated the 80th anniversary of a marriage that has set an apparent record in California.

Considering that Salvatore Caito’s father chose his son’s bride, the marriage has been a happy one, said the couple’s youngest child, Gus Caito, 69, of Burbank.

Now 104 and 96, the Caitos deserve a spot in the record books as the oldest and longest-married couple in the state and as a close second nationally, according to the Marriage Encounter organization.

A Pennsylvania couple was wed nine months before the Caitos, said Cheryl Ross, a spokeswoman for the organization, which has conducted a search for long-wed couples for the last three years.

World Record Is 86 Years

The longest recorded marriage lasted 86 years, from 1853 to 1940, according to “The Guinness Book of World Records”: a Bombay, India, couple who each were just 5 years old when the wedding took place.

The Caitos’ five children, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren will be among the about 100 relatives and friends who will gather Saturday in Northridge to help the couple celebrate their anniversary, Gus Caito said.

Although both of his parents are still active, he said, he asked that the couple not be interviewed because of their advanced ages and failing memories.

“They tire easily,” Caito said. “They need a lot of care and attention. My sisters give it to them. They’re very devoted to my parents. We are a very close-knit family.”

The Caitos live with three of their four daughters, Frances, Josephine and Sarah. The three sisters never married. Another daughter, Mary Scarplace, a widow, lives in Paso Robles.

Both Retain Interests

Gus Caito said his father walks in his garden every day to check on the roses, fruits and vegetables there. His mother, who needs a walker to get around, still supervises her daughters’ cooking every day, he said.

As Gus Caito tells it, his father, a greengrocer, wanted a “nice young lady” to bring to the United States as his bride. Salvatore’s father suggested the boy’s first cousin, whom he had last seen when she was 8. The match between such close blood relatives required a papal dispensation.

Eventually Salvatore returned with his bride to his new business in Batavia, New York.

In 1948, Salvatore Caito retired to the San Fernando Valley. The whole family soon followed.

The Caitos apparently had no quarrel with the way they came to be wed. When it was time for their son Gus to marry, they had a say in it, too.

“It was arranged by our parents,” said Gloria Caito. “We still stuck to the old ways, even then.”

They celebrated their 41st anniversary last year.