Traveling the world from my couch to bring you bad parenting news from around the world, I’m Trench Reynolds for Parents Behaving Badly.

Today we travel to Suadi Arabia to bring you a bad parenting story of epic proportions. They may be one of the richest countries in the world but all the money in the world can’t buy you common sense.

I’m sure you’ve seen the headlines about this story, a so-called father married away his daugter away to a 47-year-old man that the ‘father’ owed debts to. Not so unusual right? I mean arranged marriages happen all the time in the Middle East. Except the fact that the girl is only 8 years old.

The girl’s mother took the case to court but since the couple were separated the ‘judge’, Sheikh Habib Abdallah al-Habib Hasenfefer Corporated, ruled that the marriage stands.

It’s ok though because the judge asked, not ordered but asked, that the man give a pledge that the marriage won’t be consummated until the girl reaches puberty. Well, that makes it all better doesn’t it?

With all that money you’d think the country could afford to but itself into at least the latter part of the 20th century. What father in their right mind would give away their 8-year-old daughter to another man because of some ridiculous debt. Don’t they give goats and camels anymore?