The waiting period for a missing person before ruling on the separation from his wife

Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, is the opinion that the wife of a missing man waits for her husband for ninety years the stronger position in your view? What is it?

Answer:
Ninety years, my brother? You do not wait ninety years. No, no, ninety years from his birth. He might be lost when he is nine or ninety-nine years old; only one year remains. She waits one year, or if he is seventy-five or eighty-five, she waits five years, or if he is seventy, she waits twenty years. No, no, ninety years only from his birth. We do not say that you wait ninety years from his disappearance. Yes, generations will come after him, and she will die and go. Yes. I would like you to reflect on the phrases of the jurists; do not take them without reflection. They said "a full ninety years," they did not say "wait ninety years." Yes.