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If you are looking for the perfect partner in life, forget about what the horoscopes say, says a new British study.

Researchers at Manchester University in northern Britain said they found no evidence of attraction between star signs and concluded that the zodiac had no impact on chances of marrying - or staying married. The findings of the study were released Monday.

The investigation used census data from 2001 to analyse the birthdays of all 20 million husbands and wives in England and Wales.

David Voas, from the university's School of Social Sciences, said no special compatibility was found between star signs.

"If there is even the smallest tendency for Virgos to fancy Capricorns, or for Libras to like Leos, then we should see it in the marriage statistics," he said.

"When you have a population of 10 million couples, then even if only one pair in 1,000 is influenced by the stars, you would have 10,000 more couples than expected with certain combinations of signs," explained Voas.

"There's no such evidence though. The numbers are just what we'd predict on the basis of chance," he added.

Astrologers were likely to argue that full birth charts would be needed to predict personality accurately, said Voas.

"But what ordinary people talk about is sun signs. If those are useless when it comes to sizing up a mate, then that knocks a big hole in everyday belief," said Voas.