I grew up in a Hindu household but went to a Roman Catholic school. I grew up with a mother who said 'I'll arrange a marriage for you at 18 ' but she also said that we could achieve anything we put our minds to an encourage us to dream of becoming prime minister or president.

My father was a Catholic but my mother wasn't. She had to do that weird deal you do as a Catholic - they deign to sanction your marriage and you have to bring your children up as Catholics.

My parents had a wonderful marriage but it was a very dependent relationship. My mother was entirely dependent on my father because that's how it was in those days.

My father was a soldier and my mother was a great mover. She once counted up how many places she had lived in during the first 25 years of her marriage and it came to 20.

There is a big misconception about arranged marriage. Yes it can mean that you meet someone and then have to marry them but this was my mother saying 'I'm going to introduce you to so-and-so - If you don't like them fair enough.'

My parents had an arranged marriage as did so many other people when I was growing up. My father came and had a life in the United States one way and my mother had a different one and I was very aware of those things. I continue to wonder about it and I will continue to write about it.

My mother brave woman lost her whole family when she decided to marry a black man in the '60s. When the marriage fell apart she had to come back to her family.

My parents separated when I was four. It wasn't the smoothest of divorces but then as my mother always says 'You can't have a passionate marriage without a passionate divorce.'

My parents separated when I was four. It wasn't the smoothest of divorces but then as my mother always says you can't have a passionate marriage without a passionate divorce.

My argument is simple which is that for several thousand years in Western civilization marriage has been the union of one man and one woman. Research is overwhelming that children need mothers and fathers.