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What is "Love"?

Love is an extremely simple & ultimately powerful energy which must be "discovered" in the modern world because the veils of materialism have obscured it. 

Some of this Love experience would appear to be very deeply karmic. It hurts! However the result of developing one's capacity to Love will be extremely positive and beneficial in every single lifetime. That knowledge gained through struggle to understand Love is the pearl of great price. "Precious!"

The native will fight - and win - a lifelong battle to Recognize the greater reality of Love. 

Every other graha competes for the native's attention. Some grahas are functioning in the current lifetime to work against the native's chance for discovering Love

1. Shani's focus on material survival

2. Chandra's emotional need

3. Shukra's attraction to comfort & sensual pleasure

4. Kuja's physicality and competitiveness

5. Budha's mentalism

6. Rahu's constant yearning for the objects of passion & ambition.

7. Ketu's apathetic detachment

8. even Guru's expansive inclusiveness

All of these agendas work against the goals of Surya, who is the Center of Divine Love in Earth's system. (There are other centers in bigger systems of which Earth is a part, e.g. our Galactic Sun, but in our perception, Surya is the main center.)

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Surya = Greatest Love

Surya (Kuja/Guru) represents the Greater Love. The greater love is not emotionally need-based and cannot be betrayed by loss, disdain or "cheating". The greater love is absolutely personal, and does not involve other humans. Quest for the greater love is fueled by a love of knowledge, a hunger for Truth, a deep and ceaseless Spiritual Desire. The Greatest Love is considered by philosophers (lovers of knowledge) to be the ultimate prize for humans. 

Chandra = Lesser but Essential Love

Chandra (Shukra/Shani) represents the Lesser Love. The lesser love is a sincere & genuine expression of human emotional need, cannot be disregarded or oppressed without emotional backlash. Humans need touch. They need security, protection, connection to a people and a place. They need mothering, sheltering, validation. These are basic needs of the material and astral bodies. If these needs are not met in childhood then the native will remain "unconscious", chained to the Moon, and living in lifelong hunger for continuous sheltering, ego-reflective mother-approval.

Humans are Sun-Moon creatures. 

Each human must learn to consciously negotiate the Surya-Chandra dichotomy of "love" perceptions. It is essential to not confuse the two worlds, but rather to appreciate how Chandra reflects Surya, protecting humans from spiritual overload until our electrical circuitry is capable of handling the Greater Love intensity.

Love Intelligence

It is essential to learn to use the correct love tools in each appropriate Love World. 

• In interpersonal relationships with other sentient beings, the compassionate one attends to the realities of the lesser love. Provide approval, safety, and validation to loved ones. Respond with Human Care. 

• In partnership with the Divine, the compassionate one opens the heart as wide as possible to receive the inflow of brilliant creative spiritual energy. Respond with Divine Praise. 

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Realistic expectations and goals for Modern Marriage

All nativities have patterns similar to yours - that is, there are no ideal marriages. There is a generous amount of public denial of course; lots of people putting up a nice smooth social façade of "everything is fine" in their marriages! But looking honestly into modern marriage, whether first, second, or third, there will always be and indeed there *should* be plenty of negative mirroring and friction. 

The goal is *not* to manifest a marriage which has no growth potential and no dynamic energy for change - that is, a marriage free of individuality and conflict. A lock-down psychic stasis like that might have been an ideal in medieval society when physical survival depended on people taking absolutely fixed social roles and anyway the average life span was about 40 years!

In these days of dwapara yuga, the main goal of marriage is to provide a sanctuary of mutual understanding and emotional support for two independent individuals. 

These two independent people choose to trust each other to provide a degree of social dignity and comfort while each partner continues to "work on their stuff". The "stuff" is mainly one's unresolved issues from childhood (and for those with clairvoyant vision, issues from past lives.)

It is essential for the karmic process that one should maintain faith. It is smart and emotionally healthy to enter into partnerships, be hurt, practice forgiveness, be healed, and be hurt again. This process is a privilege. 

Hanging onto anger, fear, and grief reactions from past relationships (which are still very much alive in one's head!) prevents the karma from being processed. 

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To Whom - and to What - are we attracted?

Attraction is all about Matching Energy.  We humans are attracted to Others who possess qualities we lack - but need and want - in order to psychically complete ourselves.  These may be "desirable" qualities or they may be negative or destructive qualities.  Typically the attraction is quite unconscious: we find ourselves suddenly "in love" with an apparently wonderful person, with whom we feel validated, balanced, and complete.  Even if there is negativity and tension in the love relationship, its a comfortable, familiar sort of trouble that seems just right.  

Whether positive or negative or (most typically) an interesting mix, this combination of qualities to which we are so convincingly attracted is the right match. Each human is on a mission to acquire the self-knowledge necessary to feel complete within ourselves.  We attract, and are attracted to, the partners with whom we have a past-life agreement to work together on this grand mission.

Direct knowledge of our own subconscious is, for most people, totally blocked.  The only way most of us can find out what's really going on in that vast heap of past-life accrual called "Self"  is by watching our own thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors played out in the mirror of our relationship to Others.  The most powerful of all Other-Mirrors is the marriage partner.

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The Mirror

In the Jyotisha charts, several leading "Opposite" indicators show what your Mirror looks like.  The qualities of the One to whom we are deeply attracted will compose a profile of the future spouse.

The radix (root, or natal) chart shows a conscious, material level of reality.  The spouse's material attributes - social position, publicly validated traits, overt behaviors, etc. - are presented at the culturally agreed reality level. These features one consciously wants, & feels attracted to.  

At the social-material level, one expects this attribute-package to define the Other in the marriage relationship.  Upon this limited view of the spouse, one expects to remain feeling happily completed, as the ritual says "until death do us part".

Public attributes of spouse, from radix:

1. 7th-from-radix-lagna (rashi & nakshatra)

2. 7th-from-radix-Moon (rashi & nakshatra)

3. 7th-from-Shukra (rashi & nakshatra)

4. 7th-from-Arudha lagna (radix)

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The marriage-mirror is complex. Marriage has a public (radix) reality and also a private (navamsha) reality.  

Radix shows five-senses level of common reality. Radix shows material outcomes, results, name, rank, and serial number. The spouses career (10th-from-7th); the in-laws (2nd-from-7th); the spouse's health (6th-from-7th). This information is in the public domain.

The navamsha (and all varga charts) show psychic origins of the material results which manifest in the radix. Vargas display a deeper, more personal astral pattern of subconscious expectations (held in past-life memories). This astral pattern is embedded in the interstitial spaces of the physical body. The varga charts can reveal this deeper, intuitive level of expectation as it plays out psychically in the unfoldment of the future. 

For example,  here is the radix-navamsha of the film actress Angelina Jolie. 

Jolie's three husbands (two legal marriages and one union producing children) are all film actors and/or models. 

• 4th-from-lagna = spouse's occupation = Thula

  L-11 Shukra in lagna, these folks make their living from their physical appearance

• 10th-from-7th-from-Chandra = Mithuna

L-3/L-12 Budha in domain-11 yuti Surya-Ketu, their livelihood involves talking in imaginary scenes (12) and memorizing scripts along with intensive teamwork (3)

• 4th-from-Shukra = Thula, same as above

Navamsha is on the border between public & private. 

• 4th navamsha shows more what the native wants her spouse to be doing, and that would be Kuja's department: athlete, father (yuti Guru/Chandra) and master teacher

• Material fact emerging from role of lord of 4th D-9 in radix, is that the spouse's profession is the same line of work as the native's father

• evaluation starts to move from material to psychological when entering the realm of navamsha. 

• Here Kuja as lord of 4th navamsha shows this native chooses spouses who act a lot like her father (pun intended). 

• Since Kuja with L-6 Guru is inauspicious for father in domain-9 radix, there will be psychological tension & conflict over the spouse's male-sexual-energy expression within the father's profession as well.

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The nativity below belongs to Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the USA. Bill has been married only once (so far) and his wife Hillary is very well known. 

Hillary and Bill met in Yale Law School, so clearly he was attracted to the fact that she was a lawyer. According to Jyotisha, Bill was consciously or unconsciously seeking to marry a powerful female attorney.

what is the Jyotisha evidence?

• 4th-from-lagna = spouse's occupation = Dhanau (rashi of the Law)

  L-4/L-7 Guru-Thula, vargottama in domain-2, these folks make their living from  crafting agreements - esp. from balancing large-scale financial interests, via Brihaspati

• 10th-from-7th-from-Chandra = Karkata

L-11 Chandra in domain-8 = livelihood involves large earnings, handling confidential investment knowledge, dealing with insurance industry and its large pools of jointly held assets 

• 4th-from-Shukra = Dhanau, same as above

That fairly well describes Hillary R. Clinton's paid law practice, and also her unpaid agreement-crafting work as a diplomatic agent for her husband's political offices.

Navamsha is on the border between public & private. 

• 4th navamsha shows more what the native wants his spouse to be doing, and that would be Chandra's department: being a mother, handling confidential information (8) and caring for the jointly held assets of marriage (managing their marital wealth)

• Material fact emerging from role of lord of 4th D-9 in radix = aspects of the spouse's true profession are somewhat hidden from public view (8) but her work is emotionally essential to the welfare of the native

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One is attracted to the spouse not only because of their public match to one's recognized needs & desires. One is also attracted to the seamy underside of frustration, conflict & disappointment.  One can sense the "underbelly" coming intuitively (and the Jyotishi sees this underbelly in the vargas). It forms a major component of the attraction.  

However one (typically) cannot name or articulate navamsha dynamics because this underlying psychic reality is unknown to the conscious mind.  Only when the marriage is established and the karmic struggle to define & purify the Self really sets in, does one know the full character of that person to whom one has been so deeply attracted. 

These subtler psychic traits are seen in:

1. 7th (sometimes 1st) navamsha

2. 7th-from-navamsha-Moon

[NB: Hart & deFouw use an "80/20" rule for reading the navamsha that seems quite useful in practice.  That is, they use 7th navamsha & its lord to represent the first spouse in about 80% of cases, whereas the 1st navamsha will actually represent the spouse (and 7th navamsha represents the native) in about 20% of cases.]

IMO the single most accurate portrayal of the spouse is found by examining the radix position of the navamsha lord of L-7 (See some examples below.) Every attribute of this planet - its sign, house, drishti upon it, nakshatra padaa, etc. should be studied carefully to see the inner truth of this partnership.  

• For second marriage, see lord of L-2's navamsha sign; 

• for third marriage see lord of L-9's navamsha sign; 

• etc.

It does happen that one partner enjoys the marriage while the other does not.  This will certainly be borne out in the lord of L-7's navamsha compared in the two partner's charts.

see also: Matching "UP" Toward Bliss: Understanding Psychic Attraction & Repulsion on the Path of Partnership

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Cross-over matching points

There are always strong "cross-over" correspondences between the two parties key axes in radix and navamsha.  There must be some cross-over between radix and navamsha in order for a relationship to endure.  I.e., radix-to-radix or navamsha-to-navamsha is not enough.  There must be at least one radix-to-navamsha match for a marriage to even occur - much less succeed!

• axes of radix lagna, radix Chandra, and radix Nodes

• axes navamsha lagna, navamsha Chandra, and navamsha Nodes

One way to determine whether a potential mate will become your married spouse (at the appointed time of course)  is to evaluate the number & strength of these radix-navamsha connections between mutual Chandra, lagna, and nodes. 

Note that significant "cross-over" radix-navamsha matching (which indicates psychic affinity and mutual emotional recognition) will also occur in other essential partnerships such as guru-sishya, parent-child, and grandparent-grandchild.  

These radix-navamsha connections are not about marital sexuality.  They are about psycho-emotional bonding: being able to grow together within the field of shared awareness, expectations, and perceptions.

Sometimes, key emotional axes are not matched in the other partner's radix or navamsha.  When this happens, the un-validated party must find psycho-emotional validation in another relationship.  

Ideally there will be an emotionally close sibling or spiritual friend who possesses the missing match.  That ideal friend will be able to "see" and give value to these psychic realities which to the spouse are "invisible". Some marriages with weak cross-matching cannot be sustained without supplemental companionship. 

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Marriage is "Commitment Yoga"

Marriage - especially the first marriage - is represented in the radix chart by yuvati bhava, the 7th house.  "Yuvati" means "yoga" or "yoke".  

Marriage is the central yoga, the central balance point, the central control, & the central discipline, of the entire life. 

Even the ordained celibate religious are "married" to their ishtadevata, the god of their heart. 

Everyone has a primary "Other" - whether that "Other" is a fleshly spouse, a deceased spouse, a passionate ideal, or a spiritual spouse taken in holy vows of ordination.  

Everyone is "yoked" on some level to a mirroring, judging, responding, participating partner.

Like any yoke - or yoga - marriage creates both stability and bondage. Whether the public union of marriage is experienced as a blessing or a curse depends on the condition of yuvati bhava, and its relationship to each of the other 11 houses of the radix chart. 

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The marriage yoke binds "self" (lagna / ascendant) to "other" (7th house).  

(See bhava yoga page for more on yokes.)  

Two partners enter the Yoke like two oxen.  After the yoke is on, they have to work together, pulling in the same direction.  

If they don't, it hurts - and nothing gets accomplished.  

If they do, a nice plowed field will manifest - and everybody, including the oxen, will flourish.

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Marriage as a Public Contract

Despite the Euro-American romanticizing of marriage as a strictly personal, emotional decision, the Jyotisha view is that marriage is a very strategic choice which must be carefully considered in light of its future impact on the native's public standing.

Being 10th-from-10th, marriage is a critically important social status indicator. 

Social status is indicated in order of importance by: 

1. house-10 public authority & leadership role

2. house-7 (10th-from-10th) marriage status

3. house-4 (10th-from-10th-from-10th) property ownership

4. house-1 (10th-from-10th-from-10th-from-10th) physical appearance

Marriage conditions are of high significance in social ranking and personal dignity.  A strong marriage to a helpful, enthusiastic, appreciative partner can hugely assist career developments.  The spouse and (by extension of the signification of house-7) other peer partners in business and community life, can potentially double one's effect in the world, which increases the public recognition and approval defined in house-10.

A weak marriage house bodes poorly for the native's self-respect, and makes high levels of public approval fairly inaccessible.  And while a good 10th house might "trump" a bad 7th house, it's unlikely that the native with a severely damaged 7th house will be able to fully  ascend the ladder of social recognition no matter how excellent the characteristics of karmaa bhava.   

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Unfinished marital business from past lives

Details of the private side of marriage are seen in navamsha, where the partners' subconscious expectations (residue of unfinished marital business in past lives) are exposed. 

Without conscious intervention, subconscious marriage programming will play out naturally, as if the native were acting out a movie script.

Whether marriage is a blessing or a curse depends a good deal on this navamsha script, and whether the native possesses critical consciousness necessary to "edit" the script in real time - i.e., while we are in the process of living it!  

Editing requires conscious use of "forgiveness" which is very demanding emotionally, and should only be attempted by those who have reached sufficient levels of spiritual development.

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Marriage not a Commodity, Possession, Goal or Achievement (although it is promoted as one!)

Sometimes I am asked to predict the timing of marriage. This is a fairly easy thing to do in Jyotisha, but I am uncomfortable doing it for clients who feel a great urgency to "get" married as a way of satisfying their parents' demands, or protecting themselves against social insecurity. 

The whole idea of "getting" married and the anxiety surrounding that process tends to disturb effective divination, because it deprives the native of their earth grounding.

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Marriage Anxiety

Before attempting a marriage divination, I like to make sure the client recognizes what they are asking for.  Yes, they are asking for the timing of an event - and that is what Jyotisha does best! - but do they realize the significance of this event? How this event will change their life forever, in an often very difficult and angry way?

So, I usually counsel anyone anxious about marriage to note that despite intensive marketing of wedding products & our lifelong socialization to "get" married as a major status achievement, marriage is in fact not a fixed commodity. Marriage is, more than anything, a state of mind.

This seems to be an important level of awareness for many marriage-timing clients, particularly those with insecure, demanding parents. 

First of all, we are benefited to remember that guilt causes reactive confusion and resulting poor decisions. Embarking upon a marriage for the central purpose of to assuaging filial guilt will perpetuate the guilt in the marriage environment.  

Parents who push their children into marriage to alleviate their own social insecurity are compounding the marriage anxiety and making the astrologer's job hard to accomplish! 

The client who "needs to be married within the next year" in order to satisfy some social requirement (esp. parents) is likely to be entering a very low consciousness marriage, and to not be using their own healing agenda as a guide to choosing their marriage partner. 

Yes I can see the timing of this event, but I can also foresee the bitter consequences.  The client him/herself who demands marriage within a favorable time-and-money framework rather than allowing the spiritual healing agenda to dictate when they feel ready to take on a partner, is in "victim mode." Such a person feels that marriage is an uncontrollable experience which happens "to" one.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Secondly, anxiety about loneliness, inferior social status of single women, etc. are is also symptomatic of an unconscious marriage. Unless bare physical survival is at stake, I like to counsel clients to be aware that marriage will cause many more problems than it solves. 

These are good problems to have, of course - the problems of intimate healing, the problems of sharing the devastation of the cycle of birth and death with another being, the problems of vital and vigorous negotiation of identity, of meaning, of balance. Good problems to have.  

Having a wedding will not solve your problems. Having a wedding does create the possible conditions for healing, but at least in the short run being married simply compounds the scope and number of problems because there are two people's karma to manage now.  

I like to preface any anxious consultation about the timing of marriage with a rather sober lecture on taking responsibility for how this marriage unfolds, rather than hyperventilating with unbearable uncertainty about the calendar day of the ceremony.  

If it wasn't for the vow, which makes this union a truly sacred commitment, the day of the ceremony would have no value at all. The real work is not in "getting" married but in "being" married - for sure!

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Rather, marriage is a Living Yoga

As the old joke goes, everyone wants to "get" married, but no one wants to "be" married. But of course it is the "being married" which is the true reality.  There is really nothing to "get," except the social approval. All the work & all the reward is loaded into the "being" part.

"Marriage" is actually a living spiritual environment like a garden which must be lovingly tended, through drought and frost, in good years & bad. It has weather cycles like the earth.  A long dry spell might kill it.

Much like a child, it is constantly in process, constantly negotiating for change, and requires constant awareness & attention.

Clearly marriage is not a "thing" or an "achievement" but rather an interactive process.  Marriage is an ongoing yoga: a vital & supremely demanding  negotiation for self-definition, core meaning, emotional security, and higher truth.  

Marriage is a sophisticated spiritual practice which needs dedication & wise guidance.  The core of marriage practice is ongoing forgiveness which allows us to register disappointment, anger, grief etc. Forgiveness allows the native to accept responsibility for the karma, and - at the point of acknowledgement  - to release the addiction to suffering, by releasing the attachment to the cause.

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Marriage Dharma 

In particular, the Marriage house's location in 9th-from-11th and 11th-from-9th  shows how marriage expresses the power of Dharma in the native's life.

Marriage partner brings Dharma (in the sense of Wisdom) to the native in two essential ways: 

• as  9th-from-11th  the marriage partner emerges from the web of native's friendly associations, as its finest fruit .  Marriage partner is the Best & Wisest Connection in the native's entire network of associations (11), and as such the marriage partner attracts much prosperity

• as 11th-from-9th the marriage partner is the basis of "sangha" or community of the wise.  I.e, the marriage partner is one's Most Essential Connection to the wisdom that gives permanent meaning to life.

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Navamsha

Varga or "divisional" charts show the results of any undertaking of life.

The varga for marriage is Navamsha or 9th division, which shows the "fruits of Dharma." 

Presuming an accurate birthtime, navamsha (D-9) will be consulted side-by-side with radix (D-1) chart, to evaluate not only the material but also the inner psychological dynamics of marriage. 

Accurate predictions require concurrence between material (d-1) and psycho-emotional (d-9) configurations.  Normally there is reasonable concurrence in the two perspectives.  However, when the navamsha and radix spousal indications are contradictory, there is usually to be found a public/private split in which things look on the outside (d-1) much different than they feel on the inside (d-9) in the marriage.

By and large there is also a matching pattern between: 

• your navamsha and the partner's radix

• the partner's navamsha and your radix

• your navamsha and the partner's navamsha

• Moon linkage plays a major role

These D-1-to-D-9 links show the issues on which you two partners are spiritually working together. Traits which are dormant or subordinate in partner-1 will be alive or dominant in partner-2.  Thus each partner "mirrors" the other's arising consciousness, and facilitates spiritual growth by evoking astral imagery into real world action.

The navamsha reveals traits, desires, hopes, dreams, fears, etc. which are dormant but trying to rise into consciousness in your life. You find the partner who is already acting these out in the material world.  You are intensely attracted to this person; they are everything you admire, everything you crave, everything you want to be.  This person completes you; expresses you; forms your "other half".  

Naturally, you marry them!

Examine each house in Navamsha from the appropriate partner lagna to know the level of your soul that is just now moving from subconscious to conscious. We usually need partners to bring out this new personality growth in us. (Even if that partner is the ishtadevata.)

• navamsha 7th house represents first marriage spouse; navamsha lagna is you

• navamsha 2nd house represents second marriage spouse; navamsha 8th house is you

• navamsha 9th house represents third marriage spouse; navamsha 3rd house is you

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Yoked Work: Managing marital cycles of Attraction-Repulsion, &  Desire-Contempt 

Every action has a reaction.   Every attraction contains its own repulsion.   Ask any good Buddhist: if you are intensely attracted to something now, rest assured you will be intensely repulsed by that same thing in the future!  

A significant part of the "work" of marriage is learning to manage the cycles of desire and contempt one feels toward one's partner over long periods of time.

All marriages are timed by Rahu-Ketu, which means that all marriages involve attraction-repulsion.

• In a love marriage, you personally are attracted & (later) repulsed - typically by the psycho-emotional qualities of the partner.  

• In an arranged marriage your guardians are attracted-repulsed - typically by the social-material qualities of the partner.  

But in either case Desire (which eventually boomerangs to Contempt) plays a major karmic role in Marriage. The karmic forces behind marriage are so strong that it seems not to matter much whether one "chooses" one's mate through "falling" in love -- or allows that mate to be chosen by one's social guardians. When it is time for the karmic partner to find you, they will find you!

It is often observed in modern India, where arranged marriages remain fairly common, that the success rate of arranged marriages approximately equals the success rate of "love marriages."  That is, about 50% of marriages are satisfying; 50% problematic - regardless of whether they are romantic or arranged.  

The big-picture view is that, no matter what social mechanism selects the mate,  we will all create (through impetus of samskara) a spouse/series of spouses who perfectly match our karmic job description :) 

The big-picture view is that, no matter what social mechanism selects the mate,  we will all create (through impetus of samskara) a spouse/series of spouses who perfectly match our karmic job description :) 

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Yoked Work: Maintaining the Intention to Reach Agreement

Successful Marriage requires discipline, self-knowledge, and moral effort. Marriage can only survive when there is agreement on how to conduct the division of karmic labor. The higher the agreement level, the easier the partnership. 

• Physical work: not only doing the labor, but agreeing on how to do it, requires constant attention.

• Spiritual work: For those who feel ready to accept the austerity, marriage can be a high-speed vehicle toward consciousness.

There is never perfect agreement (as long as humans have egos, anyway) and so there is never an effortless marriage.

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Whom will I marry?  -- Know who is "The One" by knowing your purpose. 

If your seventh radix, seventh navamsha, 7th-from-Moon, and Venus are agreeable to marriage, then you will marry the person WHOM YOU CREATE in your quest to to reach the next step in your search for the divine.

Each spouse has a key to one essential aspect of their partner's True Self. The process of coming to knowing the full range of your True Self offers one very viable path toward knowledge of the divine. 

Fully knowing You - in all your terrible beauty - is a quite effective way of exposing the presence of That Which Dwells Within.  

And who better to expose you :) than your spouse?

It's their job.

 If either partner is significantly traumatized, marriage can be a completely unconscious, reactive dramatization of subconscious motives during which very little self-knowledge or movement toward realization of the divine takes place.  

Since most people are pretty heavily traumatized, unconscious marriage is unfortunately the norm.

However if you are blessed with a conscious or even partly aware marriage, it is not hard to recognize that you & your spouse have clearly attracted each other for a salient purpose: to provide each other with the most intimate mirror of "the missing parts" of your inner selves. 

These missing parts are the aspects of personality about which we are "missing" important information, of which we lack recognition - until the partner through feedback reveals that information.  

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By marriage I mean the religious not the legal definition.  Religious marriage is a spiritual union made sacred through speaking a vow.

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The marriage partner has a unique combination of good/bad -easy/difficult traits that are designed to both comfort and disturb. 

The comfort is from similar hopes & dreams, habits & pleasures. The disturbing factor is  "matching energy" - matching pain, matching anxiety, similar childhood trauma, etc. 

Psychologically, "The One" is a personality that has many of the most difficult, conflicted, or inaccessible traits of your most difficult parent.  Most people have the most trouble during the childhood interaction with their opposite-gender parents.  

As a general rule, women have more trouble with their fathers and men have more trouble with their mothers.  

Yet some men have more trouble with their fathers and some women have more work to do with their mothers.  

And some folks are raised in communal settings, by religious orders, or in other parenting arrangements that are not so easy to identify the gender-reaction patterns.  

Past lives, which are stored in the subconscious, do play a role in childhood relationships with parents & caregivers. 

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Alternative Sexual Orientation Unions

Certainly the lines between gay vs. straight marriages are increasing blurred as modern societies move out of survival urgency and sex-role divisions of labor fade into history...  

Yet,  in these early years of the second millennium, it is generally the case that a majority of women experience greater emotional difficultly connecting with their father, and conversely majority of men experience greater emotional difficultly connecting with their mother.  

In order to continue their most significant spiritual work and break through their most challenging inner barriers, most women desire marriage to men, and most men to women as the most direct method of revealing and healing their childhood trauma with the opposite gender parent. 

But what if the greater difficulty, blocked emotional access, negligence, lack of expected guidance and nurturing, even physical abuse, is linked with the same gender parent? Then, it is more likely that the subconscious will direct the native into a same-gender relationship.

Men with men & women with women follow the same psycho-spiritual logic of attracting a spouse who mirrors that comfortable-but-oh-so-frustrating energy of the more difficult parent (including difficulty caused by absence).  

But their most difficult parent will hail from the same gender.  These natives need to cross their inner fear barriers - barriers constructed in the subconscious which greatly limit freedom and happiness in the conscious life - by getting their healing information from the mirror of a same-gender spouse.  

Natives who follow a pattern of both straight and gay unions within one lifetime, are similarly gaining missing knowledge that was originally sought from both parents, alternately.  

Natives raised by same-gender parents composed of two men or two women in life partnership, will probably have the same results as children historically raised by mother-grandmother /father-grandfather or two-sister/two brother pairs; that is, they will seek a spouse who mirrors whichever parent-partner was more complex or difficult.  

Sex of the spouse will tend toward the sex of the difficult parent as in conventional unions, but at this point in the logic we need to be able to distinguish between sex and gender.

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How to Know Who You're Going to Marry

The psycho-spiritual purpose of  marriage is to work out the problems one had, in childhood, with the more-difficult parent.  

If you are looking for a marriage partner, it is fairly straightforward to define who that person is and when you might be ready to receive them into your life.

Just be honest about your struggle to achieve complete emotional access to &  validation from your more difficult parent.  

If you can define that struggle, you can define your next spouse!

Sugar and Vinegar

Marriage is "yoked" sugar and vinegar.  The sugar comes first, but the sugar is designed to seduce you with shared hopes & dreams, and extract from you a commitment.  The sugar is soon joined by the vinegar. The vinegar is spiritually essential! The higher purpose of marriage - which is healing - is only possible to achieve if the vinegar is present! 

There must be pain, confrontation, disappointment, and grief in marriage... if there weren't, there would be no motive for the native to examine their subconsciously driven reactions. Only by examining our reactions can the hidden holdings of the subconscious be exposed.

The struggle to heal deeper pain and experience higher freedom will go to phase-2 in your first marriage, phase-3 in your second marriage, and so forth. The struggle for one lifetime might start and finish within a single marriage (check palm lines to confirm).  However the full healing endeavor can easily entail  2, 3 or more marriages in the modern era. The healing process can also go from gay to straight unions, and vice versa.  

If you know your own healing agenda well enough, you'll be able to spot that next spouse at 500 yards.

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Seeing the One, that Great Mirror, via Yogas from Sun & Moon

We can see through radix and navamsha charts how your subordinate trait patterns (navamsha) attract partners who manifest precisely those trait patterns but in a dominant, confident style (radix) -- and vice versa. 

In other words, see areas of life where you are weak, have low permission, restricted access, and therefore need help to balance yourself.  You'll need partners (including the Ishtadevata) to help step-wise acquisition of balanced intelligence and capability in weak areas.  And so you shall attract them!

A key feature in those patterns is the gender-associated behaviors of Sun and Moon.  Sun Surya/Guru represent the father's expansive rational authority, and Moon/Shani are the mother's conservative intuitive control.

In conventional marriages, a woman's husband can be seen through planetary yogas formed by her Surya/Guru in both radix & navamsha, and a man's wife through planetary yogas formed by his Chandra/Shani in both D-1 and D-9.  

Yogas of Surya and Soma which also engage Shukra, navamsha lagna, Rahu-Ketu axes in either D-1 or D-9, or key players in marriage (such as the mahadasha pati of a long-running, marriage-related mahadasha) are especially potent for defining the characteristics of the spouse.

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Jyotisha and Gender Symbolism

In non-conventional unions, the symbolism of Sun as "masculine" and Moon as "feminine" will signify father and mother, husband and wife, reason and intuition, etc. One of the strongest and most satisfying energetic pairings is male-Sun with female-Moon. This Sun-Moon configuration is both interpersonally and socially validating, and it contributes a major endurance factor into any partnership.

However, it is critically important to be intellectually vigilant in Jyotisha analysis of alternate sexual orientation unions. Gender is a psycho-social construct!  "Masculine" is a gender term which can be understood independently of anatomical sex.  "Masculine" energy is present in both male and female bodies.  

The Sun-male/Moon-female balance works just as well emotionally and is just as socially sanctioned, when it occurs between a male guru and a male student, in a naturally dominant-subordinate or manifest-dormant type of wisdom relationship, such as guru-sisya.

The partner whom one attracts for the purpose of balancing a weakness of "Surya" energy will have - relative to oneself - significant "masculine" qualities such as stronger public presentation, more rational decisiveness, better developed (even overdeveloped) Ego.  

The partner who is attracted in order to help balance a weakness of "Chandra" will have significant "feminine" qualities such as stronger listening skills, more patience, better developed intuition, and emotional sensitivity than the native.

• Since women are, in general, given less social permission to run rational, decisive energy 

• and men are, in general, given less social permission to run intuitive, perceptive energy, 

• the general patterns for women seeking public recognition through men 

• and men seeking family stability through women, 

• are well known.

However, despite the general patterns, there is no fixed requirement that this helper should have any particular anatomical attributes.  

Masculine energy does have a natural affinity for the male body, and male bodies are usually happiest running about 90% male/10% female energy.  However male bodies can tolerate different fuel mixes over the short term, up to about 30% female energy, especially when caring for their young. 

Female bodies run  70-80% female/30-20% male energy optimally.  However female bodies are fully capable of running as much as 50% male energy in leadership settings, which puts them in the perfect Sun-Moon balance during times of crisis.  (I.e., women are much better suited to balanced leadership roles.)

Therefore healing, conscious intimate partnerships are legitimate and available in virtually every configuration of Sun, Moon, male, and female.

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Timing: When? 

Meeting the partner:

Sanjay Rath opines that the native will Meet their first spouse during a period of Shukra.  

This is often true. Shukra bhukti script often brings a highly attractive person into the field of one's perception. 

Virtually any bhukti of the Shukra mahadasha can also bring the future spouse into one's range of view.

However, I have noticed that a future spouse is also met in periods of navamsha L-1 or L-7, or Rahu.

• The first psychic attraction occurs during a Vimshottari period of Shukra [or navamsha L-1 or navamsha L-7] whether the native is male or female.

• However, for a traditionally religious woman who expects to receive her education, values, worldview, & abundance passively through her husband, and who is expecting a transcendent love relationship (frequently non-sexual) with the husband in a protective, fatherly role, attraction/introduction may possibly occur during a bhukti of Guru. 

• It is also possible although much less common to meet the future spouse in periods of Rahu-Ketu or Shani, particularly if Rahu-Ketu are giving the effects of navamsha L-1/L-7, or Shukra.  A partner first encountered in Shani bhukti will have a very somber presentation, characterized not by romance but by harsh necessity.  But, sometimes, life is this way.

• The definition of "meeting" is very flexible :) - generally "meeting" means a real-world social introduction, but in some cultures the spouse can be known only to your parents, or can be known to you only in dreams. 

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Three Jyotisha Rules of Marriage Timing 

Three conditions must be met for the timing of marriage:

1. Any of the following "marriage-maker" Vimshottari bhuktis must occur. 

   • bhukti of the lord of the 1st or 7th navamsha

   • bhukti of Shukra or Rahu (Rahu frequently indicates marriage to a person from another culture or religion)

   • in circumstances of scarcity, servitude, or social pressure, a bhukti of Shani (Shani-timed marriage is associated with urgency of time-and-materials constraints: a pregnancy, or remarriage to protect existing children, or political requirements)

   • very rare: Ketu period can induce a spiritual, unconsummated marriage 

2. Gochara Rahu-Ketu must be traveling through any of the following seven lagnas:

   • navamsha lagna or navamsha axis of natal nodes

   • radix lagna or radix axis of natal nodes

   • radix axis of natal Chandra

   • navamsha axis of natal Chandra

   • radix axis of natal Shukra

3. The graha which triggers marriage must have a radix-activated  navamsha lord. I.e., the navamsha lord of the marriage-maker must ALSO be marriage-empowered in radix. 

   • For example, a Rahu bhukti during a qualifying Rahu-Ketu transit might look like the perfect recipe for an impulsive marriage.

   • However, Rahu's desires will not drive a passionate attraction all the way into a wedding ceremony if navamsha Rahu occupies a rashi of conservative Shani. (unless, perhaps, Shani is also L-1 or L-7 navamsha...)

   • However, if navamsha Rahu occupies a rashi of "natural" marriage-maker Shukra 

In addition, the native should have marriageable age & status, according to the customs of their own culture.

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• Case Study: Jyotisha Marriage Timing Prediction

• Case Study: Timing from Navamsha & Gochara Nodes.)

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The most typical, most classic "marriage and family" Jyotisha timing is when the native enters this Vimshottari pattern :

1. Shukra mahadasha (gives the romance and love of material comfort)

2. Rahu bhukti (gives the passionate attraction)

3. gochara Rahu-Ketu contacting one of the key lagnas (gives the identity-change behaviors)

then, following immediately after Rahu bhukti comes

• Shukra/Guru period (gives the children)

• Shukra/Shani period (gives the heavy responsibility for structured parenting roles, social expectations, & requirement to provide material support.) 

This is a typical timeline. There are of course many interesting varieties of marriages, and many ways to experience the marriage-and-family trajectory; nevertheless it is good to recognize the most common pattern.

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Marriage timing schedule implicit in the Bhuktis:

• Even if Shani is neither L-1 nor L-7 navamsha, Bhuktis of Shani can be marriage-makers when the native is under intense mental or physical pressure of survival. The typical case of Shani-driven marriage is a widow/er who 'must' remarry in order to care for their children.  The pressure may be clearly material (starvation, servitude) or more social (marginalization, humiliation). The marriage will tend to be duty-oriented.

• Bhuktis of Shukra often provide the enchantment of falling in love with a physically or financially attractive person. The marriage promises material comfort, luxury and sweet companionship, according the character of Shukra in nativity. The marriage will tend to be focused on physical beauty, sensual indulgence & material ease, with a relatively low tolerance for illness, austerity or hard work.

• Bhuktis of Rahu create "hot-house" marriages marked by psychological possessiveness, deep trauma, taboo-breaking, intense psycho-sexual attraction, and the passionate rush to a quick wedding. Typically the partner is a 'foreign' person from a different culture, religion, or social class than the native. The marriage will tend to focus on crossing cultural & psychological boundaries in pursuit of deep desires.

• Bhuktis of the lords of the first or seventh navamshas create a deep psychological compensation or mirroring attraction. Each partner is mesmerized by the other, who expresses their own dormant traits in a more active, public way. The marriage will tend to focus on public/private & inner/outer division of social and psychological labor. 

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About second marriage:

IMO, if you are more than 30 years old, don't panic regarding the doomsday statistics for second marriage. Prognosis is good for second marriage in general, presuming the native has matured emotionally during Shani return age 28-31 and Rahu return age 27-29.

Although overall divorce statistics are highly unfavorable for second marriages (with some 65%+ of second marriage ending in divorce) those figures are badly skewed by the very high percentage of second marriages contracted when the spouses are under age 25, which end in divorce. 

The frightening 2nd-marrriage statistics are largely due to couples whose first marriage occurs at 17-20 and second marriage at 21-24.

Partners older than age 45 at time of second marriage have extremely low divorce rates (as do first marriages made after age 35 generally.)  

Partners who are both university educated also have much lower divorce statistics.

Emotional maturity (L-4, Chandra) and education (L-4, Budha) are very positive factors in marriage longevity!

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Timing: Second Marriage 

Traditionally, bhukti of lord-of-2nd-from-Shukra will introduce the second spouse.

Second marriage ceremony 

• bhukti of activated marriage-maker graha 

• gochara Rahu-Ketu cross one of the marriage lagnas

(For a detailed analysis of navamsha activation in a sample nativity, please see Timing from Navamsha & Gochara Nodes.)

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Timing: Third Marriage:

Traditionally, bhukti of lord-of-9th-from-Shukra will introduce the third spouse.

• bhukti of activated marriage-maker graha 

• gochara Rahu-Ketu cross one of the marriage lagnas

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Timing: Fourth Marriage

Traditionally, bhukti of lord-of-4th-from-Shukra will introduce the fourth spouse.

• bhukti of activated marriage-maker graha 

• gochara Rahu-Ketu cross one of the marriage lagnas

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"Proper time for marriage: 

Celebrating marriage is auspicious when the Sun is in the signs of 

• Gemini

• Aquarius, 

• Capricorn, 

• Scorpio, 

• Taurus and 

• Aries. 

If the Sun is in the sign of Gemini, 

then in the month of Ashadha it is only from the Pratipada (the first Tithi of the month) to the 10th Tithi in the Shukla Paksha or the Bright Half of the month that the celebrating of marriage is auspicious. 

If the Sun is in the sign of Scorpio 

• marriage may be celebrated in Kartika also, 

if he is in the sign of Capricorn, 

• in Pausha also and 

if he is in the sign of Aries, 

• in Chaitra also."

~~ BPHS, Ch 6, Shloka 13

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Q: Will the second spouse make a better contribution to the joint wealth of the marriage than the first spouse?  

• 2nd-from any house is the wealth from that house.  2nd-from-7th or randhra bhava is the wealth of the spouse, particularly the first spouse.

• 8th-from-lagna and 8th-from-Moon and 8th navamsha show your in-laws--  the family, wealth, and values of the first spouse.  The combined profile of these three joint-asset angles defines the joint assets of the first marriage.  Remember dhana is not only material wealth but aesthetic values and attitude toward wealth in its spiritual, mental, and emotional manifestations.   A good attitude toward money and a clean heart attracts money; the reverse also proves true!

• 8th-from-2nd-from-lagna or dharma bhava and 8th-from-2nd-from-Moon and  8th-from-2nd-navamsha, or 9th-D9) characterize your in-laws --  the family, wealth, and values attached to the second spouse. The combined profile of these three joint-asset angles defines the joint assets of the second marriage.

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Q: Is the chance of "survival" for a marriage better if we choose to be married during the "appropriate" Bhukti or is that just a period of increasing likelihood of marriage?

A: Marriages pretty much occur on schedule of the vimshottari dasha. It is actually not possible to experience a marriage unless the planets are lined up correctly. (Humans don't have the power to control major life events, regardless of what we learn in the public schools!)

The benefit of Jyotisha in the modern age is not so much marriage "insurance" via ritual protection of the planets (which certainly used to be Jyotisha's central function) but rather "mental health" advantage of knowing when these key life events are most likely to occur.

(The only exception is the negative "warning" function that a Rahu bhukti is likely to signal a crazy, exotic marriage... which one might wish if karmically possible to decline!)

First marriage occurs during the bhukti of the proper lord plus a gochara Rahu-Ketu contact point. Bhukti of the subsequent navamsha lords with corresponding Rahu-Ketu transits brings subsequent marriages. A more-or-less auspicious day or month within the destined bhukti may be "chosen" by the marriage partners or their parents, but the timing of marriages is rather a karmic affair, with larger forces enforcing the schedule.

The "chance of survival" of the first (or any other) marriage depends on how fast the person is changing in this lifetime. The first marriages of people in traditional cultures nearly always "survive" their full lifetimes because there is not much growth/change allowed in cultures where stability is prized above creativity. 

In cultures like ours that value creativity and newness, there is high permission for changing ego structure, i.e. redefining who we are - perhaps several major redefinitions during a single lifetime. 

Major changes in a person's worldview will mandate a change of those primary relationships which confirm and support our identity. We can peel through so many karmic layers with the advantages of elite education, tremendous amount of free time for therapy and reflection, and sex-positive culture that drives us through relationship after relationship like a house of mirrors. It is possible to have several VERY USEFUL, spiritually legitimate marriages.

So in the west our family arrangements including spouse change much more frequently. Traditional cultures (or more traditional families within the generally pro-change greater western culture) may interpret creativity as instability; change-oriented cultures will interpret stability as stagnation.

If "unstable" (read: creative, innovative, open-minded, or healing-from-trauma) planets control the axis of the first or subsequent marriages, these marriages may be tumultuous and brief or at least not life-long. 

On the other hand if the axis for a particular marriage is "stable" there may be a very long commitment praised by outer society which on a personal level may require major compromise, adaptation, and not infrequently repression/oppression. 

Long answer to your short question, but the prognosis for a given marriage (in the modern west) involves evaluating the spiritual purpose that marriage is designed to serve. If the person is working through major emotional trauma in this life, the "survival" of particular marriage may be intentionally brief.

Having said that, I do agree that the small choices we can make, as to choosing an auspicious day and location, are very beneficial to the spiritual well-being of the partners joined in that holy ceremony. 

Not because our small human choices can override the greater plan, but because in seeking to choose the most harmonious conditions we are expressing a higher consciousness and a desire to work hand-in-hand with the divine, which is always a helpful attitude to sustain in every day of a working marriage. 

Higher consciousness partners who consider themselves bound to each other through the divine, will generally enjoy their marriages much more than those bound to each other in order to satisfy parents, religion, or government. So choosing an auspicious day and inviting the spirits to be present at the joining ceremony is a powerful evidence of the partners' mutual desire for a long and "fruitful" marriage.

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What counts as a marriage?

• Any officiated marriage whether secular or religious, where vows are spoken (by the partners or their priests).

In practice there may be an early, impulsive, brief, childless legal marriage - less than three months duration - in which vows were spoken while drugged or in a confused state of mind.  These rare, deceptive pseudo-marriages are "null" and do not count as "first marriage".

• Any consciously committed partnership **if vows of matrimony are taken, even in private** in the presence of the divine, between any persons of any gender.

It has been common practice in many cultures worldwide and especially now in the modern west, for partners to enjoy long-term exclusive sexual partnerships, especially in youth.  However, there is still a difference between these often deeply healing, loving relationships and a real marriage -- at least for the purpose of calculating the timing of future marriages.  The difference is, were vows taken?  

Most often the live-in partnership, while mimicking marriage in terms of division of labor, is explicitly *not* a marriage spiritually speaking, because the partners explicitly decline to take sacred vows.

• Possibly a marriage might be **a relationship which produces a conception** - however brief!  The date of marriage is the date of conception.  This situation is unusual but possible.  However, very often a relationship which produces a live child even if vows were never spoken, can count as a marriage. Sometimes the child acts as the vow-holder.

When counting houses to find your current or future spouse, be sure to consider all vows and all conceptions, or your understanding of which house matches which spouse may be inaccurate.

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"To judge the suitability of a couple, 

• the features of their feet, hands, etc. 

• the influence of Moon's position, 

• the Ascendant, 

• the time of query, 

• the behavior of the crow towards the oblation offered to it 

• and the omens 

should be taken into consideration by the learned astrologer and then only the marriage should be performed since the marital union is the most fundamental ritual in the life of mankind."

~~ Jataka Desha Marga, Ch. 14, shloka 44-45

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Q:  I lived with my faithful sexual partner for 30 years ... but we never got legally married. 

He proposed numerous times but I wanted to develop my career so I always turned him down.  Also, looking back, I see that he was doing a lot of parenting for me.  Eventually we split up.

 I'm ready to get married now and I'm looking for the astrological indicators that would tell me the timing of marriage.  Should I consider that long-term, live-in, committed relationship to be my first marriage?  How should I look for the timing of my second marriage?

A:  The vidya of Jyotisha sees true marriage as validated by either (1) vows spoken, by the partners or their priests --- or -- (2) a child born through the union.

Even long-term, emotionally committed, healing, monogamous relationships (which are so common here in the West) are not considered marriages. Even when partners love each other sincerely, but for their own reasons never advance to the taking of vows, is not considered a marriage.

The early relationship you mention -- even though it contained a proposal of marriage -- in fact never advanced to the spoken vows.  It is not a Jyotisha marriage, unless a child was born through that union. 

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Non-vow partnerships in Domain-11 and Domain-5

Long, committed non-vow partnerships may be found via either the house of Romance (domain-5) or the house of Friendship and Goals (domain-11), depending on the nature of the commitment. 

In practice, I find that most of the longer term non-vow sexual partnerships = domain-11. In matters of labha bhava, much progress is made toward individual goals. Large networks of friendship are built and much information exchanged. Two friends are deeply supporting each other in pursuit of individual goals but retain their separate identities. There is no socially approved & shared goal which would drive the partners toward marriage. These committed friendships, with or without a sexual dimension, can be very happy social arrangements which sustain for many years!

Domain-5 relationships are poetic, imaginative, and intensely projecting. The partners are "in love" in a childlike, creative, and individualized way - but they are not ready to assume the contractual obligations of marriage. 

The couple are projecting their individual "intelligence" -- psychic imagery, emotional need, wishful expectation, & transformative desire -- upon each other. Yet, due to youthfulness (chronological or psychological) with its natural love of creativity and options for change, the relationship does not enter the adult contractual phase. Marriage, indeed, is a promise not to change!

Unlike domain-11 non-vow partnerships, domain-5 love affairs tend to be short duration. They produce marvelous feelings of childlike wonder and desire unto bliss, but lack the "kendra" foundation of a lifetime promise.

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Is this person a good partner for me?  Is this "The One"?

You will know, if you have met someone special in a period of Venus (or 2nd-from-Venus for 2nd marriage) AND an appropriate bhukti AND one of the required Rahu-Ketu transits will soon apply, that you are likely to be getting married in the near future. Not guaranteed, of course, but generally the two factors of correct house-lord bhukti plus nodal movement makes marriage quite likely indeed.  

Usually, if the timing is right, it's "the One" (or second One or third One) and that person is "good for you" spiritually whether being "good for you" is "easy" - or not. 

Some marriages, especially those undertaken during period of Rahu, might better be avoided by those with the self-knowledge to avoid them.  But this is a Catch-22 statement because it is precisely the Rahu-dominated folks who can't avoid these marriages due to intense, past-life-rooted passions which strongly tend to make history repeat itself.  Rahu gives burning desires for pleasure, excitement, tumultuous change, and uprising of subconscious patterns into consciousness.  If your consciousness permits a higher awareness of your repeating desire patterns, you can avoid unfavorable marriages entirely by working out some other type of partnership [business, caretaking, service] with the object of your Rahu-driven passions.  

This conscious reengineering of an attraction is rare, because most people have a quite limited understanding of spirit, and therefore confuse the sexual, social, and spiritual purposes of marriage. However if you are one of the rare ones, take it as a principle of good life to avoid being married in a bhukti of Rahu because Rahu greatly amplifies the power of past-life desire. 

Whatever happens, marriage is a major part of life karma.  You can have your cake and eat it too if you think of each new significant partnership or marriage as a healing.  Healings work in surprising ways.  Sometimes they are quite painful.  Be willing to be surprised, as your partner shows you new information about yourself.

If you are attracted to a partner, their information is by default "good for you" spiritually in that the soul has assigned this person to bring you valuable spiritual information about yourself.  Each partner evokes from us, a manifestation of our dormant intelligence.  Each partner plays the "other half".  Each partner makes us whole.  This is true even if your partner is abusive or deceitful.  They still have a piece of your jigsaw puzzle; they are still your spiritual friend, helping you clear the path to the divine.  Even if it seems like they are creating obstacles, in reality those are *your* obstacles and you want to own them so that you can solve the dilemma and *you* can move forward.  

The navamsha will give you a fairly clear picture of the dormant traits in yourself which attract persons with more empowered versions of those traits in relationships.  Study your navamsha to learn which jigsaw puzzle pieces you are collecting in this life.  Your rashi chart shows your conscious developed personality, but the navamsha shows the level of you which is just rising to consciousness.  Study the navamsha to see who you are trying to become.  Then, be delighted when the people who are already intensely using those traits show up in your life on schedule!

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Marriage conflict, & Dusthanas

12th-from-7th = house-6, is the repository of most of life's chronic conflicts.  House-6 shows loss of balance, loss of partnership, loss of agreement. Physical conflicts that create dis-ease, emotional conflicts that create chronic argumentativeness, moral conflicts that attract punishers, spiritual conflicts that spread animosity throughout the native's associations - all of these manifest in house-6.

The core partnership of life is marriage.  We mean by marriage the committed vow-taking partnership between any two beings, including beings of the same gender & difference genders, and commitments between beings in a body such as a spiritual celibate in a monastery and their body-free ishtadevatas /Gods of their heart.  The proof of the marriage is not the legal certificate or the parental approval.  The proof of the marriage is the vow.

Since the core partnership of life is marriage, the nativity with strong grahas in house-6 is very likely prone to marriage conflict.  In most areas of life, malefic grahas in a dusthana neutralize evil and they are therefore ultimately beneficial. However, malefics in a dusthana will always have a negative effect on marriage. 

• Malefics in house-6 signify chronic internal conflict within the native's own personality. The more intense the malefics, the strong the drishti upon Ripu bhava, the deeper the native's interior personality conflict and the more difficult they will find it to establish agreements with those "mirrors of the self" who are their intimate partners. Those who suffer deep internal conflict usually cannot tolerate the discomfort; they become victims who blame outside forces for their suffering; and their first blame target is often the spouse.

• Malefics in house-8 typically signify conflict with in-laws, since house-8 as 2nd-from-7th represents the spouse's family.  Again, for some purposes, a malefic in house-8 can be a good thing because the houses ruled by that malefic are prevented from causing much trouble when their lord is "destroyed: in Randhra bhava.  However for marriage, in-law conflict signified by malefics in house-8 can be very straining, and in some cases cause the demise of the marriage.

• Malefics in house-12 signify persons, substances or behaviors which are "enemies of the marriage" because house-12 = 6th-from-7th.  House-12 is very private.  Vyaya bhava includes meditation and sanctuary, bed pleasures and secret liaisons. 

Malefics in house-12 can make a person psycho-emotionally disturbed because their sleep is ruined or they have terrible dreams.  Marriage counselors would label most 12-house activities as "exit strategies" from marriage: "mushrooming out" in front of the television, 

Even otherwise beneficial effects of house-12 like spiritually guided meditation do have negative effects on marriage, because they cause the person to leave the partnership and enter into a closed sanctuary space - frequently with a competing love interest, who is a deity or set of exclusive practices.  

Shukra in house-12 is associated with addictive behaviors.  Addictive substances such as drugs and alcohol are definitiely the enemies of marriage!

House-12 also rules long-distance, long-term travel such as foreign assignments.  Long journeys are also the enemy of marital intimacy - even if they produce other benefits like business profits which support the spouse and family materially.

• L-7 occupying house-6, house-8, or house-12 is unfortunate, and usually indicates a difficult marriage.

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