According to Michael Brucciani (Mailbox, April 7): "The sexual act without its proper purpose turns what should be an act of self-giving into one of selfish pleasure seeking, which dissolves the will for commitment and permanence in marriage".

He seems to think that marriage is the magic pill that automatically creates a loving and caring environment that, as he puts it, "will result in a baby that will never be unwanted".

It is neither marriage nor co-habitation that brings real love and care for parents and their children; it is the love that comes from a genuine respect that both parents have for each other, plus hard work and a selfless commitment to the responsibility of caring for your loved ones.

The simple act of clinging on to a piece of paper to show how pious and moral-minded you are can in many cases just be a cover-up to allow you nothing more than restricted access to sex and domination.

My parents were both Christians who conducted their lives according to the teachings of the Bible and were both celibate until they declared their commitment to each other by getting married in church.

To the outside world they were the ideal couple, but as soon as they married my father became a sex-obsessed monster who forced himself on my mother whether she wanted it or not. They never reasoned with each other about anything; he just told her what to do, and she did it.

I lost count of the many times I found her crying by herself when he was at work. As far as I was concerned he felt that his only obligation was to clothe and feed me, while otherwise keeping as big a distance between us as he possibly could. He made my mother's life an absolute misery and sent her to an early grave, and his one gift to me was teaching me how to hate someone. Those are two things that I can never forgive him for.

That was my experience of a Christian marriage, and was the sole reason for changing my name by Deed Poll, because I wanted to dissociate myself from that man.

If I could go back in time to help my mother, I would urge her to divorce him and bring me up by herself. I would rather have been raised by one parent who genuinely loved and cared for me than to have lived in the two parent hell-hole of a marriage I called home.

Alan R Pendragon, Leicester.