I write in reply to Ralph Leavis’ letter (March 21), which, I must admit, I was bewildered by.

Because it has long been the custom of the British to marry for love, the key feature of a marriage is not the “union of a man and woman” but the union of two people in love – though perhaps Mr Leavis believes any man and woman will do.

Perhaps the “real marriage” he is referring to is of the arranged kind?

Mr Leavis excluded, I do not believe that anybody at all is insulted when homosexuals, or, indeed, heterosexuals, refer to gay people as gay. To take his logic and run with it: is the scout movement meant to suggest that only pre-teens with badges are capable of military reconnaissance, in “the proper sense of the word”?

Robert Hunt, Compton Drive, Abingdon