The seventh house

The seventh house begins at the Descendant, the degree setting on the western horizon, opposite the Ascendant. It is an angular house, as strong as the first. Traditional topics are the partner, especially the spouse in older books, open enemies as distinct from hidden ones, contracts, and the person across the table in a negotiation or a suit. The seventh is the other whom you can see. The twelfth is the other whom you cannot. Keeping that distinction saves a reading from treating every difficulty as a secret.

The natural sign is Libra, and the natural ruler is Venus. The memory aid is the scales, the pair, the attempt at a fair beam. Saturn is exalted in Libra, so the textbook seventh also remembers that a real bond has terms. In an actual chart the seventh-house sign is opposite the rising sign. If Aries rises, Libra sets, and the natural pair is literal. If Cancer rises, Capricorn sets, and Saturn rules the partnership. Read the setting sign. Use Libra to remember what the place is for.

Opposite the seventh is the first house. The axis is self and other, the entrance and the encounter. A seventh-house reading that ignores the Ascendant describes a partner floating free of the person who has to live with them. Look at both ends. Often the planet ruling one end aspects the planet ruling the other, and that aspect is the relationship's weather inside the chart. It is a symbol of style. It is not a prediction that a marriage holds or fails.

Planets in the seventh are conspicuous in the life of partnership and of open contest. Venus there is a classic reconciler, with the risks of her condition: she may keep a peace that needs a harder sentence. Mars there is a classic picture of heat in the bond or in the lawsuit, courage or strife depending on dignity and sect. Saturn there can describe a bond with a serious duty, a delay of partnership, or an opponent who works by endurance. Jupiter can describe a generous partner or a legal matter with room in it. The Sun in the seventh puts the conscious will in the place of the other, which can look like a life organized around a person or a public counterpart. The Moon there makes the bond tidal and bodily.

Empty houses are still active through their rulers. The ruler of the seventh is one of the most watched planets in traditional horary and in natal work about partnership. Note its sign, house, and aspects. A seventh ruler in the tenth ties partnership to vocation. A seventh ruler in the fourth ties it to home and family. A seventh ruler combust the Sun, in the old language, is a planet invisible in the Sun's light, a signification of something hard to see clearly. You can begin without that technique. You should not begin without the ruler.

Romance as play lives more naturally in the fifth. Do not make the seventh carry every love story, and do not make the fifth carry the contract. A person can have both: a fifth-house style of courtship and a seventh-house style of commitment, and they may not match. That mismatch is often the useful observation.

In practice, name the setting sign and its ruler, then any planet on the western angle. Ask what this chart recognizes only when another person holds up the mirror. For the natural sign, read Libra. For the planet of alliance, read Venus. For the helm opposite, read the first house.