Seventh house
The angular house that begins at the Descendant, read as partners of every kind, marriage, close collaboration and open rivals.
Meaning
The 7th house is the part of the sky that was setting in the west at birth, beginning at the Descendant in most house systems. Astrologers read it as the other person: partners of every kind, a spouse, a close collaborator, a business partner, and also the open rival, anyone met face to face and on equal terms.
It is an angular house, and planets here are read as strong, though they are often lived through other people. Its opposite is the 1st house, and the axis they form is that of self and other: what one brings, and what one looks for, admires or resists in someone else. Modern astrologers often say that the qualities of the 7th are first met in partners before they are recognised as one’s own.
The 7th house describes how a person relates, not whether or when they will marry; it says nothing fixed about the course of a relationship.
In practice
- Saturn in the 7th is often read as commitment taken seriously and relationships that deepen with time, sometimes with an older or steadier partner; Jupiter in the 7th, as growth through partnership and generous partners; the Sun in the 7th, as an identity that comes alive in relationship.
- The sign on the Descendant describes what is sought in a partner, and its ruler shows where relationships often begin: with the ruler of the 7th in the 9th, through study or travel.
- In synastry, astrologers note where each person’s planets fall in the other’s 7th; in a composite chart, the 7th describes how the couple meets the world of others.
- An empty 7th house does not mean staying single; it is read through the Descendant and its ruler.
Across traditions
- Jyotish calls this house kalatra, the spouse, and also jāmitra, a word borrowed from the Greek diametros, “diameter”, since it faces the rising sign; it is an angular house, a kendra, and a house of kama, desire.
- Zi Wei Dou Shu has a palace of the Spouse among its twelve palaces; it is found by another method and read on its own terms.
Origin and history
Hellenistic astrologers called this place the Setting, dysis, where the planets go down in the west. Lilly read the 7th for marriage and the person one marries, for questions of love, for open enemies and the other party in a lawsuit, for contracts, and in horary questions for thieves and fugitives. Modern astrology, following the sign of the same number, Libra, made it above all the house of relationship and of what one learns through others.
How Ulune calculates it
In Placidus, Ulune’s default, and in the other quadrant systems, the cusp of the 7th house is the Descendant itself, exactly opposite the Ascendant; in Equal houses it is the Descendant’s degree as well; in Whole sign houses the 7th is the whole sign opposite the rising sign; in Morinus it is not tied to the Descendant. In synastry, Ulune’s table shows where each person’s planets fall in the other’s houses. Without a birth time the Descendant and the house are only a stand-in for 12:00, and are marked ~.
Correspondences
| Correspondence | Seventh house |
|---|---|
| Type | Angular |
| Opposite house | First house |
| Cusp in quadrant systems | Descendant |
| Hellenistic name | Setting (dysis) |
| Planet that rejoices here | None |
| Sign of the same number, in modern practice | Libra |
| Jyotish | Kalatra or jāmitra, a kendra and a house of kama |
Related
- DescendantThe degree of the zodiac setting on the western horizon at birth, read as partners and what someone seeks or meets in others.
- First houseThe angular house that begins at the Ascendant, read as the self, the body, vitality and the way a person meets the world.
- LibraThe seventh sign, cardinal air ruled by Venus, which the Sun enters at the September equinox, read as the sign of balance, relationship and fairness.
- VenusThe planet of love, pleasure, beauty and what someone values, the lesser benefic of tradition.
- HouseOne of the twelve sectors of the sky at the time and place of birth, counted from the Ascendant, each standing for a field of life.
- SynastryTwo charts compared, through the aspects between one person’s planets and the other’s and the houses where each one’s planets fall.
- Composite chartOne chart made from two, each planet at the midpoint of its positions in the two charts, read as the chart of the relationship itself.
Sources
- David Pingree, The Yavanajātaka of Sphujidhvaja, 1978
- William Lilly, Christian Astrology, 1647
- Deborah Houlding, The Houses, 2006
- Chris Brennan, Hellenistic Astrology, 2017