7 house: Partnership

Houses

What happens when an equal appears nearby?

The seventh house begins with the Descendant and governs partnership: marriage, business alliances, open opponents. It shows what kind of people a person chooses opposite them and what qualities they give to a partner instead of recognising as their own.

The first, fourth, seventh and tenth houses are called angular: their boundaries are the Ascendant, the nadir, the Descendant and the Midheaven. A planet at such a boundary shows up most noticeably.

Look at the sign on the Descendant, the planets in the seventh house and Venus: they describe partner selection. A planet in the seventh house is often read as a quality the person seeks in another rather than recognises in themselves.

A house without planets does not mean the theme is absent. It is read by the sign on its cusp and the ruler of that sign: where the ruler is placed, the theme goes. Empty houses in a chart are usually more than half – there are ten planets and twelve houses.

Houses are built with the Placidus system from the time and place of birth. An error of four minutes in the time shifts the Ascendant by about a degree, and an error of an hour can move a planet into the neighbouring house. Without a known time the platform shows no houses at all, rather than inserting noon and producing a plausible but wrong chart.