The family’s no is the one obstacle to a love marriage that the couple did not choose and cannot argue away, and the chart reads it from two houses. The fourth is the mother, the home and the comfort of belonging; the ninth is the father, the tradition and the standing of the line; and a love marriage that the family opposes is a fifth-seventh relationship that one or both of those houses will not admit. The reading answers the questions the couple actually ask, which are not whether the family will object, since they already have, but which parent, and why; whether the no is the kind that delays or the kind that denies; when consent comes, if it comes; what the other family will do; and what a marriage made without consent costs, and for how long. This article reads all of that, with ten signatures of opposition and consent, the timing of consent in the fourth and ninth lords’ periods, and a chart in which the father said no in one sub-period and came to the wedding two years later.
It belongs to the complete relationship astrology guide. The love marriage itself, the fifth-seventh join and its denials, is the earlier page, Love Marriage in the Chart; the inter-caste and foreign spouse in the KP method is the inter-caste and foreign spouse reading; and the family as a unit, its wealth and its standing, is the second house, read in the second lord in the twelve houses.
Conventions used. Parashari astrology, whole-sign houses, Lahiri ayanamsa, Vimshottari dasha; the fourth house as the mother and the home, the ninth as the father and the tradition, the second as the family unit, the fifth and seventh as the relationship; the partner’s family read from the partner’s chart, or from the derived houses of your own, the tenth for the partner’s mother and the third for the partner’s father. Caste, community and religion are read only as the ninth house’s reaction, and this page takes no view of them. Nothing here is a remedy to change a parent’s mind.
Which parent, delay or denial, and when: the chart answers all three.
A relationship consultation reads your fourth and ninth against your fifth and seventh, names which parent's house is the objection and what it is made of, tells you whether the no delays or denies, and marks the sub-period in which consent arrives; with your partner's chart it reads their family the same way.
In this article
- The two houses of the family, and the one behind them
- Which parent: the fourth against the ninth
- What the no is made of: Saturn, Rahu, Mars, Ketu, the Sun
- The no that delays and the no that denies
- Ten signatures of opposition and consent
- Caste, community and religion: the ninth house’s reaction
- The other family: the partner’s chart, or your third and tenth
- When consent comes: the fourth and ninth lords’ periods
- Marrying without consent: what the second house says it costs
- The family’s return, and when
- A worked chart: the father’s no, and the wedding two years later
- Frequently asked questions
The two houses of the family, and the one behind them
The fourth house is the mother, and through her the home, the comfort of belonging, the emotional ground the native stands on; its lord’s placement and condition, read in the fourth lord in the twelve houses, say what the home is like and how it receives a stranger. The ninth is the father, and through him the tradition, the religion, the community’s judgment and the standing of the family in it; its lord, in the ninth lord in the twelve houses, says whether the tradition is a shelter or a wall. Behind both stands the second house, the family as a unit and its continuity, which is the house that decides whether an objecting family closes its door or keeps it open. Opposition to a love marriage is one or both of the parental houses set against the fifth and seventh, and the chart shows it as their lords in the sixth, eighth or twelfth from the seventh lord, as malefics on the fourth or ninth, or as the fourth or ninth lord afflicting the fifth; consent is the reverse, the parental lords connected to the seventh lord or benefics on the parental houses. A chart with the fifth-seventh join and the parental houses clean is the love marriage the family accepts, which is the commonest outcome and the one this page is not about.
Which parent: the fourth against the ninth
The couple almost always know which parent is the wall, and the chart confirms it and adds why. An afflicted fourth, or a fourth lord in a dusthana or in the sixth from the seventh lord, is the mother’s objection, and it is usually about belonging: the partner is not from here, does not fit the home, will take the child away; Saturn in the fourth, in Saturn in the fourth, is the mother who says no slowly and for a long time, and Rahu in the fourth, in Rahu in the fourth, the mother whose objection is fear of the unfamiliar. An afflicted ninth is the father’s objection, and it is usually about standing: the caste, the community, what people will say, the family’s name; the Sun with Saturn in the ninth is the father whose authority the marriage challenges, and Rahu in the ninth, in Rahu in the ninth, is the tradition itself objecting through him. Both houses afflicted is the united family, which is rarer than the couple thinks, since usually one parent is the wall and the other the door, and the reading names which is which, because the parent who is the door is the one through whom consent comes.
What the no is made of: Saturn, Rahu, Mars, Ketu, the Sun
The planet on or ruling the objecting house says what the objection is made of, and the couple can usually recognise it. Saturn’s no is duty and time: the family that objects because it is too soon, because the elders have not been consulted, because things are not done this way, and it is the no that becomes a yes when the form has been respected and the time served. Rahu’s no is fear of the outsider: the partner from another community, religion or country, and it is the no that either breaks the tradition or is broken by it, with no middle. Mars’s no is anger and honour: the family that treats the marriage as an insult, and it is the no with heat, the shortest and the most dangerous, read in Mars in the fourth. Ketu’s no is indifference: the parent who does not oppose but will not attend, the detachment that hurts more than a fight, in Ketu in the fourth. The Sun’s no is authority: the father who says no because he is the father, and it lasts as long as the sub-period in which his authority is tested. Knowing the planet tells the couple which conversation to have: one does not argue with Saturn, one waits; one does not persuade Rahu, one lets the fear meet the person; and one does not push Mars at all until the sub-period turns.
The no that delays and the no that denies
Most family opposition delays and does not deny, and the chart separates the two. The no delays when the fifth-seventh join is intact, when the parental lord’s affliction is by Saturn or the Sun, when the parental lord has a sub-period coming in which it connects to the seventh, and when the second house is clean: the family will come round, in its time, and the reading gives the time. The no denies when the join itself is made through a dusthana, so that the marriage the family opposes is one the chart did not carry anyway; when the parental lord sits in the twelfth from the seventh lord with Rahu or Ketu, so that the tradition and the marriage cannot both survive; and when the second house is afflicted, so that the family that says no closes the door behind it. The distinction matters because the couple facing a delaying no should wait and the couple facing a denying no should decide, and the reading that calls a delay a denial sends a couple to marry alone who would have had the family in two years, while the reading that calls a denial a delay keeps a couple waiting for a consent that is not in the chart.
Ten signatures of opposition and consent
| Signature | Reads as | Delay or denial |
|---|---|---|
| 4th lord in the 6th, 8th or 12th from the 7th lord | The mother’s objection: belonging | Delay if the 4th lord’s sub-period is coming; denial if the 4th lord is also with Rahu or Ketu |
| 9th lord in the 6th, 8th or 12th from the 7th lord | The father’s objection: standing | Delay under the Sun or Saturn; denial under Rahu with the 2nd afflicted |
| Saturn on the 4th or 9th | The slow no: duty, form, time | Delay, almost always; consent after the form is respected |
| Rahu on the 9th | The tradition objecting to the outsider | Either the tradition breaks or the marriage does; rarely a delay |
| Rahu on the 4th | The mother’s fear of the unfamiliar | Delay; the fear meets the person and usually yields |
| Mars on the 4th, or Mars afflicting the 9th | The no with heat: honour | Delay if the sub-period turns before the couple acts; danger if not |
| Ketu on the 4th or 9th | The indifferent no: absence rather than a fight | Neither; consent as non-attendance |
| 4th or 9th lord with the 7th lord, or aspecting it | Consent: the parent through whom it comes | Consent in that lord’s sub-period |
| Jupiter on the 4th, 9th or 2nd | The family that sanctions | Consent, often at once |
| 2nd house afflicted with the parental no | The family that closes its door | Denial in the sense that consent never comes; the marriage may still happen |
Two signatures of opposition with one of consent is the ordinary case, the family that objects and comes round through one parent; two of opposition with the second house afflicted is the case in which the couple decides for themselves and the reading turns to the cost and the return.
Caste, community and religion: the ninth house’s reaction
The chart has no house for caste and no planet for religion; what it has is the ninth house, the tradition as the native’s family holds it, and its reaction to a partner from outside it. Rahu in the ninth or on the seventh, the ninth lord in the twelfth, in the ninth lord in the twelfth, and the seventh lord in the ninth or twelfth are the signatures of the partner from another community, religion or country, and they say nothing about whether the marriage is right; they say the family’s tradition will react. The reaction’s shape is the planet’s: Saturn’s tradition asks for form, a ceremony done properly, an elder consulted, and yields; Rahu’s tradition sees a threat and either breaks or breaks the marriage; the Sun’s tradition is the father’s pride, and yields when the father’s own sub-period passes. What the reading can add, and should, is that the ninth house of the partner’s chart is reacting too, and that an inter-community marriage has two traditions in it, read from two charts; the KP reading of the inter-caste and foreign partner, through the ninth and twelfth cusps, is the lateral page for the partner’s origin, and this page reads only the family’s response to it.
The other family: the partner’s chart, or your third and tenth
The partner’s family is read best from the partner’s chart, their fourth and ninth against their fifth and seventh, by the same rules; a couple with two charts can have both families read and will usually find that the objection is on one side and the reading is about which. Without the partner’s chart, your own chart carries their family in derived houses: the partner is your seventh, the partner’s mother is the fourth from the seventh, your tenth, and the partner’s father is the ninth from the seventh, your third. An afflicted tenth, or the tenth lord in the sixth from your seventh lord, is the mother-in-law’s objection; an afflicted third, or Ketu there, is the father-in-law’s absence or refusal; and benefics on your third and tenth are the other family’s welcome. The reading of the two families together produces the sentence the couple needs most, which is that the marriage has one objecting family and not two, and that the objecting family’s consent comes in a period that can be named. The partner’s own reading of the situation, what they feel and intend under their family’s pressure, is the earlier page, Does He Love Me?, since a partner under a Rahu ninth and a Saturn fourth is carrying a weight the other partner should be told about.
When consent comes: the fourth and ninth lords’ periods
Consent comes in the sub-period of the parent whose house is the door: the fourth lord’s for the mother, the ninth lord’s for the father, and within it in the months Jupiter transits the fourth, the ninth or the second, read in Jupiter through the fourth, Jupiter through the ninth and Jupiter through the second, since Jupiter over a parental house is the classical season of a family’s blessing. Saturn transiting the fourth or ninth, in Saturn through the fourth and Saturn through the ninth, is the two and a half years in which consent is withheld and the form is served, and a couple under Saturn on the parental house should be told the date it leaves rather than pressed to fight it. A consent that needs both parents comes in the later of the two sub-periods, and a consent that needs the community comes with Jupiter over the ninth. The rule that keeps this honest is that the parental lord’s sub-period gives consent only when the lord is connected to the seventh; a fourth lord’s sub-period with the fourth lord in the sixth from the seventh lord gives the mother’s objection its loudest season, not its end, and the reading distinguishes the two by the lord’s placement before naming the date.
Marrying without consent: what the second house says it costs
Some couples marry without the family, and the chart reads the cost from the second house, the family as a unit, and the fourth, the home. A clean second lord with the parental no gives the estrangement that is temporary, the family that does not come to the wedding and comes to the first child; a second lord in a dusthana or with Ketu gives the estrangement that is long, the family that closes its door and keeps it closed; the fourth lord in the twelfth gives the loss of the home itself, the native who marries and leaves the town. The reading does not advise the couple to marry or not, which is not its place, but it can tell them what the chart says the choice costs and for how long, which is what a couple deciding should know. It can also say the thing the couple most needs and least expects: that a marriage made without consent is still read for its quality from the fifth, seventh and Navamsa, not from the family’s attitude, and that the family’s no has no power over whether the marriage itself is good. The consequences that belong to the marriage’s quality are the troubled-marriage pages’ subject and not this page’s; this page reads only the family’s side.
The family’s return, and when
Families return, and the chart times it the way it times consent: in the second lord’s sub-period, the family’s unity; in the fourth lord’s, the mother’s home reopening; in the fifth lord’s, most often, since a first child brings the family back more reliably than any argument, the fifth being the child and the fifth from the fourth, the eighth, the mother’s transformation. Jupiter’s transit over the second or fourth is the season, and Saturn’s over the second the years in which the door stays shut. A couple estranged from a family with a clean second lord can be told that the door reopens, usually within one sub-period, and that the child, when there is one, is the key; a couple estranged from a family with Ketu on the second are told that the return is partial and late, and that the marriage is not lessened by it. The reading of the return is the last thing the couple asks and the thing they most want to hear, and it is one of the readings in this subject in which the chart, read plainly, is kinder than the family.
A worked chart: the father’s no, and the wedding two years later
A Sagittarius lagna woman, particulars altered. Mars, lord of the fifth and twelfth, sits in Gemini in the seventh with Venus, lord of the sixth and eleventh: the fifth lord in the seventh, the join of a love marriage, with the marriage significator beside it. Mercury, lord of the seventh and tenth, sits in Leo in the ninth with the Sun, lord of the ninth, and Rahu: the seventh lord in the father’s house, with the father’s lord, and with Rahu on the ninth, the tradition objecting to an outsider through the father. Jupiter, lord of the lagna and the fourth, sits in Cancer in the eighth, exalted: the mother’s lord strong but in the house of crisis, the mother who loves and suffers. Saturn, lord of the second and third, sits in Pisces in the fourth: the family’s lord on the mother’s house, slow, and aspecting the sixth, the tenth and the lagna. The Moon, lord of the eighth, sits in Scorpio in the twelfth, debilitated. Ketu sits in Aquarius in the third, the partner’s father’s house. He was from another community, as Rahu on the ninth reads.
The signatures: the ninth lord with Rahu is the father’s no made of the tradition’s fear; the seventh lord standing with the ninth lord in the ninth is the consent signature, the parent through whom it comes being the same parent who objects, which is the shape of a father who says no and is the one who eventually says yes; Saturn on the fourth is the mother’s slow no, made of form and time; the second lord is Saturn itself, in the fourth, unafflicted, so the family’s door does not close; and Ketu in the third is the partner’s father absent, which he was, having died some years before. Delay, not denial, on every count: the join intact, the parental affliction by Rahu but with the consent signature in the same house, the second lord clean.
The relationship began in Mars-Venus, the fifth lord’s period with the marriage significator’s sub-period, the two planets in the seventh. Mars-Sun, the ninth lord’s sub-period, was the father’s discovery and refusal, made of the community, and it lasted the sub-period; Mars-Moon, the twelfth-house Moon’s, was the year she took a job in another city, the twelfth’s departure, and the standoff. Rahu-Rahu, the major period changing to Rahu’s own, was the two years and eight months in which the tradition’s fear had its full season, the family divided, the mother in the eighth’s suffering, no one moving. Rahu-Jupiter, the fourth lord’s sub-period, exalted, was the mother’s consent, in the months Jupiter transited Pisces, her fourth, and the wedding was in that sub-period, with the mother present and the father not. Rahu-Saturn, the second lord’s sub-period, was the family’s door reopening, Saturn slowly, and the father came to the house after the first child, in the second half of that same sub-period, the family’s lord returning the family as the return section reads. The reading, given in Mars-Moon when she was in the other city and sure the family was lost, said: delay and not denial, the father’s no is Rahu’s and will not be argued with, the mother’s consent comes in the fourth lord’s sub-period in such a year, marry then, and the father returns in the second lord’s, later, and the return is complete. It was, and the chart had said which parent, what the no was made of, and when, which is all the couple had asked.
Frequently asked questions
Which house shows family opposition to love marriage?
The fourth, the mother and the home, and the ninth, the father and the tradition, set against the fifth and seventh where the relationship lives. Opposition shows as the fourth or ninth lord in the sixth, eighth or twelfth from the seventh lord, as Saturn, Rahu, Mars or Ketu on the fourth or ninth, or as a parental lord afflicting the fifth; consent shows as the parental lords connected to the seventh lord or Jupiter on the fourth, ninth or second. The second house, the family as a unit, decides whether an objecting family keeps its door open.
How do I know which parent will oppose my marriage?
The afflicted house says which: the fourth is the mother’s objection and is usually about belonging, the partner who does not fit the home; the ninth is the father’s and is usually about standing, the community and the family’s name. Usually one parent is the wall and the other the door, and the parent whose lord connects to the seventh lord is the one through whom consent comes, in that lord’s sub-period.
Will my parents agree to my love marriage as per astrology?
Most family opposition delays and does not deny. The no delays when the fifth-seventh join is intact, the parental affliction is by Saturn or the Sun, the parental lord has a sub-period coming in which it connects to the seventh, and the second house is clean. It denies when the join itself runs through a dusthana, when the parental lord sits in the twelfth from the seventh lord with Rahu or Ketu, or when the second house is afflicted so that the family closes its door. The reading names which, and for a delay names the period.
When will my parents agree to my marriage?
In the sub-period of the parent whose house is the door, the fourth lord’s for the mother and the ninth lord’s for the father, and within it in the months Jupiter transits the fourth, ninth or second, the classical season of a family’s blessing. Saturn transiting the fourth or ninth withholds consent for two and a half years and the couple should be told the date it leaves. A parental lord’s sub-period gives consent only when that lord is connected to the seventh; otherwise it gives the objection its loudest season.
What does inter-caste or inter-religion marriage look like in the chart?
The chart has no house for caste; it has the ninth, the tradition as the family holds it, and its reaction. Rahu in the ninth or on the seventh, the ninth lord in the twelfth and the seventh lord in the ninth or twelfth are the signatures of the partner from another community, religion or country, and the planet on the ninth says how the tradition reacts: Saturn’s asks for form and yields, Rahu’s sees a threat and either breaks or breaks the marriage, the Sun’s is the father’s pride and yields when his sub-period passes.
What happens if I marry without my parents’ consent?
The chart reads the cost from the second house and the fourth. A clean second lord gives the estrangement that is temporary, the family that misses the wedding and comes to the first child; a second lord in a dusthana or with Ketu gives the long estrangement; the fourth lord in the twelfth gives the loss of the home. The family’s return comes in the second lord’s, fourth lord’s or fifth lord’s sub-period, the last most often, since a child brings the family back more reliably than any argument. The marriage’s own quality is read from the fifth, seventh and Navamsa, not from the family’s attitude.
How is my partner’s family read from my chart?
Best from the partner’s own chart, their fourth and ninth against their fifth and seventh. Without it, your chart carries their family in derived houses: the partner is your seventh, the partner’s mother is the fourth from the seventh, your tenth, and the partner’s father is the ninth from the seventh, your third. An afflicted tenth is the mother-in-law’s objection, Ketu in the third the father-in-law’s absence or refusal, and benefics on the third and tenth the other family’s welcome.
Delay or denial, and the sub-period in which the door opens.
A relationship consultation reads which parent's house is the wall and what it is made of, whether the no delays or denies, when consent arrives in the fourth and ninth lords' periods under Jupiter's transit, what marrying without it would cost in the second house, and, with your partner's chart, the other family too.