The 7th house is the house of the other: the couple, the business partner, the loyal client, but also the opponent you face openly.
The 7th house describes what you seek, accept, and negotiate in every bond that commits two people face to face.
Knowing how to partner, listen to an opposing point of view, and build a lasting agreement.
Handing the other a quality you neglect in yourself, then resenting them for exercising it.
By Thomas Guilhot · updated
In a chart, the 7th house occupies the western half, just above the horizon that the Ascendant draws in the east.
Its cusp is the Descendant: the degree that was setting at the hour of birth. Astrologers place here the bonds lived face to face: a marriage or civil union, but also a contract with a business partner, a collaboration with a regular client, a lawsuit where each side has a lawyer. What these situations have in common comes down to one word: the other is an equal, whom you choose or whom you confront.
The house is read first through the sign on its cusp. With a Taurus Descendant, you would look for stability in a partner; with Sagittarius, rather drive and freedom of movement. The ruler of that sign, wherever it stands in the chart, then indicates toward which area the relationship leads: work, home, friends. The planets in the 7th house finally add their own color, Venus gentleness, Saturn seriousness.
This house forms an axis with the 1st house, which speaks of the self and appearance. One cannot be understood without the other: what you show spontaneously calls for, in mirror image, what you expect from others. Many people discover their 7th house in the reproaches they address to those close to them: these reproaches often resemble a quality they do not dare to exercise.
This is the house of the declared couple, the one you introduce to your family and with whom you sign a lease.
It describes less the crush, rather read in the 5th house, than the way of lasting as two: the division of roles, the way of settling a disagreement, what each believes is owed to the other. A fire sign on its cusp would look for a partner who stimulates; a water sign, a presence that understands without having to say everything.
At the office, the 7th house covers partners, clients you follow over the long term, partners in a shared project, and negotiations where each defends their interests.
It concerns careers of direct relationship: mediation, consulting, one-on-one sales, law. It would also be read in the way of approaching a declared competitor, through open discussion or through an assumed show of strength.
Day to day, this house shows in the tasks you share by contract or by habit: the household accounts, alternating errands, the neighbor you work things out with over the shared hedge.
It also shows the room left for the other’s point of view in small decisions, choosing a movie, a destination, a paint color, and the ease or discomfort of asking for a compromise.
Greek authors called this place the “setting,” as opposed to the Horoscopos that rises in the east.
Vettius Valens and Paulus Alexandrinus linked to it union and the partner. In the 17th century, William Lilly, in Christian Astrology, gives it marriage, partners, contracts, but also “open enemies”: the other would be as much the ally as the opponent you look in the eye.
The cusp depends on the house system. The site calculates in Placidus by default; Porphyry, Equal houses, and Whole Sign houses can be chosen in the chart settings, and beyond 66° of latitude Placidus gives way to Porphyry. In every case, the 7th house would remain the image of otherness.
Angular house (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th): it begins on one of the chart’s four angles; tradition sees in it the most visible areas.
The 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th houses form this family.
The three familiesSelf and appearance: the two houses are read together, on either side of the chart.
The 1st houseIn the natural zodiac, the 7th house corresponds to Libra, ruled by Venus.
7th house in LibraThe 7th house represents relationships between equals: the committed couple, business partners, contract partners, and even the declared opponent in a dispute. Its cusp, the Descendant, faces the Ascendant; it is therefore read with the 1st house: who you are on one side, what you expect from the other across from you. It describes a way of going toward others, not a dated encounter.
A 7th house with no planet announces neither solitude nor the absence of a partner. Many charts have several empty houses, since ten planets are spread over twelve houses. The reading then goes through the sign of the Descendant and through the position of its ruler: if Venus rules the house and sits in the 10th house, relationships form readily through work, for example.
Sign on the cusp
The sign that begins the 7th house and its ruler color it: twelve pages, one per sign.