Editorial: Meghan's mum would have been a fitting escort down the aisle

Meghan Markle and her mother Doria Ragland

So Prince Charles is to walk Meghan Markle down the aisle at today's royal wedding.

It was neither here nor there to me until a couple of days ago it was suggested that Markle's mother, Doria Ragland, may be the one to "give her daughter away".

Although the tradition has objectionable origins (selling a daughter to the highest bidder), there is something beguiling about the sight of a big, bluff bloke looking tearful as he walks his little girl down the aisle.

And when the father and daughter relationship has been strong, it seems appropriate that a bride should be delivered to her husband-to-be by the man who loved her first.

For Meghan Markle, however, the roles are different because her mother has been the more significant parent in her life.

Ragland's marriage to Thomas Markle ended when their daughter was 6 and it is she who will have seen Meghan through the big milestones of her life.

So it seemed fitting Ragland should escort her on her walk down St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle today for what will surely be the biggest event of her life.

Having walked my own daughter down the aisle, I know it is an affirmation of successful single parenting to deliver your child to a worthy suitor.

Like Ragland, I am the parent of a solitary female child and it meant a lot to me that she wanted me at her side on her wedding day.

Her father, though present and on friendly terms, had not seen her through the good and bad times as I had.

I don't wish to be unkind about Thomas Markle's cardiac problems but perhaps his indisposition is fortuitous.

If Ragland had got to walk her daughter down the aisle, it would have made this already unconventional royal wedding a true triumph for diversity.

An American actress is about to marry a British royal prince - so why should her yoga-teaching, social-working dreadlocked mother not take a prime role?