Seventh House
The seventh house follows the sixth and precedes the eighth. It is angular, built on the Descendant, the point opposite the ascendant, in the classification set out at House Division. In the whole-sign aspect scheme it is in aspect to the first, third, fourth, fifth, ninth, tenth and eleventh houses, and in aversion, sharing no aspect, with the second, sixth, eighth and twelfth.
The Occident
Ptolemy’s own text names this place directly, one of only a handful he uses in his chapter on length of life: “the part opposite,” that is, opposite the prorogative arc around the ascendant, “the Occident,” dysis 1 bk. III ch. 10.
Tradition
Held byDorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum: The ʿUmar al-Tabarī Translation bk. I, c. 75 CE
Dorotheus calls it the sign of marriage and ranks it fifth of the twelve places by strength, immediately after the fifth and before the cardine of the earth 2 bk. I, describing it in the same passage as the counterpart of the ascendant, opposite it as the fifth is opposite the eleventh.
What Lilly assigns it
Tradition
Held byWilliam Lilly, Christian Astrology bk. I, London, London, 1647
Lilly gives the seventh house judgment of marriage and a description of the person inquired after; every kind of love question; the querent’s open enemies, and the defendant in a lawsuit; in war, the opposing side; all quarrels and duels; the astrologer consulted, in a question about astrology itself, and the physician, in a question about sickness; thieves and the person dealing in a case of theft; wives and sweethearts, their condition and their birth; and, cast for a kingdom’s annual return, whether war or peace is to be expected, and who prevails in it. He rules by this house the haunches and the small of the back, calls it the Angle of the West, and reports it masculine 3 bk. I.
Gap in the evidence
Lilly’s inclusion of the consulting astrologer and the treating physician among the seventh house’s own significations, in a question about their own craft rather than about marriage or open enmity, is a distinct horary convention layered onto the same house as its marital signification. Whether this dual use is attested as early as Dorotheus, in the material this site holds, is not established; the ranking passage cited above names the seventh only as the sign of marriage.
References
- Claudius Ptolemy, trans. F. E. Robbins. Tetrabiblos. Loeb Classical Library 435. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940 (composed c. 150 CE). bk. III ch. 10. find a copy (catalogue search) recordprimary source
The standard English reference and the chapter-numbering scheme this site adopts and names. Non-Robbins reprints number the chapters differently, so every locus here is given as Robbins numbering.
- Dorotheus of Sidon, trans. Benjamin N. Dykes. Carmen Astrologicum: The ʿUmar al-Tabarī Translation: Cazimi Press, 2019 (composed c. 75 CE). bk. I. ISBN 9781934586501 recordprimary source
Second updated edition. A practitioner translation, cited alongside rather than instead of Pingree's 1976 Teubner critical edition. The Greek original is lost; the text survives through a Middle Persian intermediary into Arabic, which is itself part of why the Dorothean material needs careful reading.
- William Lilly. Christian Astrology. London, 1647 (composed 1647). bk. I. https://archive.org/details/b30338724 recordprimary source
Second edition 1659. Where a figure differs between the two printings this site says which printing it is quoting.