/ 29 January 2001

WANTED: PRETTY WIFE WHO LOVES KIDS

A 76-year-old date farmer in Egypt who has fathered 69 children wants to get married again – for the eighth time – so he can have more children. Qaddour Hakim says all he wants is a pretty woman about 20 years old who loves children – and is willing to live in a Saharan oasis with him and his other wives, children and scores of grandchildren. Hakim, whose one big happy family lives in the remote Siwa Oasis, proudly says his first wife gave him 16 children, his second wife produced 18 and his other five wives added another 35. Sons outnumber daughters 41 to 28 on the Hakim home turf. He needs a fresh young wife, he explains, because he is down to only three, having divorced two and outlived two others.