Steer clear of men who worship mamma

For several years I taught English to adult foreign students. Men from Italy, Spain and Portugal were not yet emotionally weaned and pined for their domestic goddesses, the Madonnas, queens of their hearts. Some lodged with us and grew thinner and thinner because they couldn't bear to eat food not made by doting matriarchs. One or two got tearful if something I cooked reminded them of Mamma's osso buco or ragu. Young Marco fled the table once because I was wearing Chanel No 5, his mother's favourite scent. It was ridiculous.

Most had Italian blood. It is the same for Arab and Asian men. Men idolise their mums, who in return worship them and usually weep noisily at their son's weddings. For my ex-husband, there was no woman on earth who could match his supermum. She is good and generous but his fixation was unnatural and made me feel hopelessly inadequate and sometimes madly jealous. My mum was hopelessly infatuated with her only son, who could do no wrong.

Wives and daughters are left down and out by this powerful duo. The irony is that if they have sons, they then repeat the pattern.

So what of indigenous British men? Until recently thousands were shipped off to boarding schools, torn away from their mothers to harden them up. Working-class boys had to go off when terribly young to make a living. The culture became more individualistic and self-reliant. Some British men do have a mother complex and willingly surrender to domineering mums. Most, though, move on to equal relationships with partners, which is why they are so popular with Asian and Latino women.

If anything they are, perhaps, somewhat neglectful of the women who bore them. I am always nagging both my husband and my Anglicised son to ring their mums more often. But not every day, please. That would be excessive and tedious.

Evelina and sad Fabio clearly don't think so. I imagine the silent irritation of Fabio's wife, Laura. Perhaps, living here now, she wishes she had chosen a nice, detached English bloke instead.