A relationship expert and marriage counselor, Mope Ogunlusi, has attributed late marriages in the country to issues of genotype compatibility, financial status and parental influence on who a child should marry.

Mrs Ogunlusi, who has been a counselor and matchmaker for 15 years, disclosed this on Saturday in Osogbo in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

She said: “A lot of Nigerians are still single and unmarried despite reaching the marriageable age bracket because they often times find it difficult to find the right partners.

“The act of searching for a partner with the right genotype and looking for a financially capable partner are creating problems for singles in selecting a partner and often times eliminating the feeling of love.

“Sometimes, people fall in love just to find out that their genotypes are not compatible and this often times lead to searching all over for a new partner, often times leading to frustration if the same incompatibility keeps re-occurring.”

According to her, a lot of Nigerian singles now have little or no time to socialise and search for a life partner because of the financial pressure they face on daily basis.

“The need for financial security and meeting daily needs has created a routine life style for a lot of people and finding time to socialise has become difficult because of the time invested in searching for daily needs,’’ she said.

In addition to the financial security challenges individuals face, she said some ladies and men were becoming choosy in selecting their partners based on his or her financial position and status.

She said the trend of looking for rich men or ladies to marry was creating a corrupt cycle that eaten deep into the fabric of marriage as a sacred institution ordained by God.

She added that some parents set standards for their children on who to marry which adds to the problem as some parents usually set “specification of the kind of man or woman their children can marry in terms of looks, tribe, ethnicity, educational qualification and finance’’.

She, however, said that matchmaking outfits were trying to help eliminate these problems created by social ills and nature by creating a platform for singles to meet and have their dream marriages come true. (NAN)