A love marriage can be promised and still not be this one. The chart that carries the fifth-seventh connection promises that a relationship will become the marriage; it does not say which relationship, and the reader who asks about a particular person, the one they are with now, deserves the particular answer rather than the general one. The particular answer comes from three tests. Whether the sub-period that carries this relationship reaches the sub-period that marries, or ends first. Whether this person matches the spouse the chart describes, in the seventh house, the Navamsa and the Darakaraka, by background, direction and nature. And, when both charts are available, whether the two marriage windows overlap, since two people marry only when both charts say so in the same season, and a relationship in which one chart’s window is open and the other’s is years away is the relationship that waits and then does not. This article gives the three tests as seven checks, the “not this one” reading and how it is said, and the horary form of the question for the reader who has no details of the other person at all.
It belongs to the complete relationship astrology guide. Whether a love marriage is promised at all is the previous page, Love Marriage in the Chart; whether the other person’s feelings can be read is the next, Does He Love Me?; and the two charts laid together is Synastry in Vedic Astrology.
Conventions used. Parashari astrology, whole-sign houses, Lahiri ayanamsa, Vimshottari dasha, the seventh house and its lord as the spouse, the fifth as the romance, the eleventh as the fulfilment of the wish, the D9 Navamsa as the marriage chart, the Darakaraka of Jaimini as the spouse significator by degree. Their chart is read where it exists and a horary stands in where it does not; the native’s own chart is never used to read the other person. The reading names a season and a probability; it does not promise a wedding.
This one, or the next one? The chart has a particular answer.
A relationship consultation runs the double-window test on your chart and your partner's, or on yours alone with the spouse description, or on a horary when you have no details of theirs: does the relationship's period reach the marriage period, does the person match the spouse the chart describes, and do the two windows meet.
In this article
- Two questions that sound like one
- Test one: does the relationship’s period reach the marriage period?
- Test two: does this person match the spouse the chart describes?
- How many before the one: what the fifth house counts
- Test three: do the two windows overlap?
- The double-window test: seven checks
- “They say they will marry me”: what that is worth from each chart
- When you have no details of theirs: the horary form
- Obstacles that delay without denying
- The reading that says not this one, and how it says it
- A worked pair of charts: windows that met
- Frequently asked questions
Two questions that sound like one
“Will I have a love marriage” is answered from the fifth and seventh houses of one chart and is a question about the native’s whole life. “Will I marry the person I love” is a question about one relationship, and it needs the relationship placed in the dasha, the person placed against the spouse description, and, if possible, the other chart. The two are confused constantly, and the confusion produces the reading that tells a native with a fine fifth-seventh join that they will marry their current partner, when the join promises a love marriage and the current partner’s sub-period ends two years before the marriage period opens. The general question is the previous page’s; this page assumes it has been answered yes, or at least not no, and reads the particular. A native whose chart denies love marriage altogether, through the dusthanas, does not need this page’s tests, since the answer to the particular question is the general one; the denial is read in the marriage cluster’s denial of marriage through the 6-10-12 houses.
Test one: does the relationship’s period reach the marriage period?
Every relationship lives in a sub-period, and every marriage happens in one: the seventh lord’s, Venus’s, or that of a planet in the seventh, with the eleventh lord’s sub-period as the fulfilment and the second lord’s as the family’s growth, which is the classical 2-7-11 timing read in the 2-7-11 formula and, for the Parashari method, in Marriage Timing by Dasha and Transits. The test is to find the sub-period in which the relationship began, find the next sub-period that can marry, and ask whether the relationship’s period reaches it. A relationship that began in the fifth lord’s sub-period with the seventh lord’s sub-period following it directly is the relationship that becomes the marriage, and the commonest shape of a love marriage in the dasha. A relationship that began in a sub-period two or three sub-periods before the marrying one, with a twelfth or eighth lord’s sub-period between, has to survive the ending season to reach the marriage, and often does not. A relationship that began in the marrying sub-period itself, late in it, is the relationship that marries fast or misses the window. The reading names the marriage sub-period by date, names the sub-periods between, and says which of the three shapes this relationship has, and that is test one.
Test two: does this person match the spouse the chart describes?
The chart describes the spouse three times, and the person in front of the native either fits the description or does not. The seventh house and its lord describe the spouse’s background and direction: the seventh lord in the ninth gives the spouse from far away or from a different tradition, in the tenth the working spouse of standing, in the fourth the spouse from the home town or through the mother, in the twelfth the spouse from abroad; the twelve placements are in the seventh lord in the twelve houses. The Navamsa seventh and its lord describe the spouse’s nature more closely, and the Darakaraka, the planet at the lowest degree, describes the spouse as a person, in the Darakaraka guide, with the Upapada lagna giving the appearance and the family, in the Upapada guide. The test is to read these three before looking at the partner, write the description down, and then compare: a partner who matches the seventh lord’s direction, the Navamsa’s nature and the Darakaraka’s person is the spouse the chart was describing, and a partner who matches none of them is a relationship of the fifth house, real and valuable and not the marriage. A partial match is the common case, and the reading weighs which of the three the partner matches, the seventh lord’s direction counting most. The full method of describing the spouse is in the spouse prediction guide.
How many before the one: what the fifth house counts
The fifth house counts the significant relationships before marriage, and the count changes the odds for any particular one. Venus, Mars or Rahu in the fifth, the fifth lord in a dual sign, or the fifth lord with Rahu gives several; a fifth with one benefic and its lord in a fixed sign gives one or two; an empty fifth with its lord in a fixed sign and Saturn’s aspect gives the native who has one relationship and marries it. The count is not a prediction of a number but of a tendency, and it is used with test one: a native whose fifth counts several and whose current relationship began three sub-periods before the marrying one has the shape of the person who has two more before the marriage, and a native whose fifth counts one and whose relationship runs into the marrying sub-period has the shape of the person who marries the first. The reading says the count aloud, because the native asking about a particular person usually has not thought about whether their chart is the one-relationship chart or the several, and the answer to the particular question depends on it.
Test three: do the two windows overlap?
Two people marry when both charts say so in the same season, and the largest single reason love relationships do not become marriages is that the two marriage windows do not meet: one chart’s seventh lord sub-period runs at twenty-six and the other’s at thirty-one, and the relationship that began at twenty-four cannot hold five years of one person ready and the other not. With both charts, the test is mechanical. Find each chart’s marrying sub-periods in the next few years; find Jupiter’s transit over each chart’s seventh, fifth or Venus; and look for the season in which both charts have a marrying sub-period and at least one has Jupiter’s transit. A season in which both windows are open is the marriage window for this relationship, and the reading names it. Two windows that never overlap in the next five years are the reading that says not this one, whatever the synastry says; two windows that overlap once, briefly, are the relationship that marries then or not at all, and the couple should be told the season. The synastry between the two charts, read in Synastry in Vedic Astrology, says whether the bond is a marriage bond or a fifth-house one, and the calculator at the Venus-Mars synastry calculator gives the attraction layer of it; but the windows decide, and the synastry only says whether the marriage the windows allow would be a good one.
The double-window test: seven checks
| Check | From your chart | From theirs, when available |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Is a love marriage promised? | The 5th-7th join, not made through a dusthana | The same join in their chart; one chart’s join is enough for the couple if the windows meet |
| 2. Which sub-period carries this relationship? | The sub-period it began in and its end date | The same, on their side; the two are usually different planets |
| 3. When is the next marrying sub-period? | 7th lord’s, Venus’s, a 7th occupant’s, with the 11th’s as fulfilment | Theirs; the season in which both fall is the window |
| 4. Does the relationship’s period reach it? | Directly, or through an ending sub-period, or not at all | Same question on their side |
| 5. Does this person match the spouse described? | 7th lord’s direction, D9 7th’s nature, Darakaraka’s person | Do you match theirs |
| 6. What does the 5th count? | One relationship, or several; where this one falls in the count | Same on their side |
| 7. Is there a Jupiter transit in the window? | Over the 7th, 5th or natal Venus | Over theirs; one chart’s transit in a shared window is enough |
Five of seven answered favourably is the couple that marries; three or fewer is the reading that says not this one; four is the reading that says the season, and that it is the only one.
“They say they will marry me”: what that is worth from each chart
Half the questions on this page arrive with a sentence attached: they say they will marry me, but the family, or the job, or the time is wrong. From the native’s own chart, the sentence is worth nothing, because the other person’s intention is not in it; what the native’s chart shows is whether the native’s own window is open and whether the person fits the description, and a native whose chart says yes on both can be told that their side is clear and that the other side is not theirs to read. From the other person’s chart the sentence is worth a great deal, because it can be tested: their seventh lord’s sub-period, their fifth-seventh join, their marriage window, and their seventh lord’s condition, since a seventh lord in the twelfth or with Ketu in their chart gives the partner who means it and does not do it. A promise is a fifth-house thing until the seventh house carries it, and the reading says, kindly, whether the promise-maker’s seventh is due to carry anything in the next two years; the fuller reading of what the other person feels and intends is the next page, Does He Love Me?, and the fulfilment of a wish in a relationship, the eleventh house’s part, is in the eleventh house and the fulfilment of love.
When you have no details of theirs: the horary form
Without the other person’s birth details the question is asked as a horary, cast for the moment of asking or for a number between 1 and 249, and the horary answers it in its own terms: the querent is the first house, the person is the seventh, and the marriage is the seventh with the eleventh, the bond with the fulfilment; the lord and sub-lord of the seventh cusp connected to the second, seventh and eleventh say yes, connected to the sixth, tenth or twelfth say no, and the Moon’s condition says whether the question is sincere. The horary’s answer is to the question as asked, on the day asked, and it is read beside the natal chart’s first two tests, since a horary yes in a natal chart whose marriage window is four years off is a yes with a long wait attached. The method for relationship questions without a birth time is in the relationship horary guide, the number system in the 1 to 249 guide, and the cluster’s own treatment of compatibility without a birth time in the horary compatibility page.
Obstacles that delay without denying
The reading distinguishes obstacles that delay from ones that deny, and the distinction is the difference between a wait and a no. The family’s opposition is the fourth and ninth against the fifth and seventh, and it delays in most charts and denies in few; it lifts in the fourth or ninth lord’s sub-period, and is read in Family Opposition to Love Marriage. Distance is the twelfth and the ninth, and it delays when the seventh lord is dignified and denies when the seventh lord is in the twelfth. The other person’s prior commitment, a marriage or an engagement, is the seventh of their chart and not yours, and the page on it, Relationships With a Married Person, is the one to read before this one if it applies. Saturn’s transit over the seventh delays the marriage of a relationship that survives it, and the reading gives the date Saturn leaves. And a Venus retrograde in the marrying window, or a Mars transit over the seventh, delays the wedding by a season and denies nothing. A native with a relationship that passes the three tests and faces two of these obstacles is told the wait, in months, and the native with a relationship that fails a test is told that the obstacle is not the reason.
The reading that says not this one, and how it says it
The reading says not this one when the relationship’s sub-period ends before the marrying sub-period with an ending sub-period between, when the person matches none of the three spouse descriptions, and when the two windows do not overlap in the years the couple could reasonably wait. It says it in a particular way, because the native has not asked whether they will marry but whether they will marry this person, and a plain no to the second is heard as a no to the first. So the reading says three things in order: that a love marriage is promised, if it is; that the marriage window is in such a sub-period, by date; and that this relationship’s period ends before it, or that this person does not match the spouse the chart describes, so that the marriage the chart promises is with the person the chart describes, who is met in the marrying sub-period. That is a reading with a season in it and a description of a person, and it is very different from a no. It is also often wrong in the way charts are wrong, at the edges: a partial match and an overlap of a few months is a maybe, and a maybe is said as a maybe, with the season named, and not upgraded to a yes because the native hoped.
A worked pair of charts: windows that met
Her chart: Virgo lagna, particulars altered. Jupiter, lord of the fourth and seventh, in Capricorn in the fifth, debilitated, with Mars, lord of the third and eighth, exalted beside it, the classical cancellation of Jupiter’s fall; Venus, lord of the second and ninth, in Scorpio in the third; Mercury, the lagna lord, in Libra in the second; the Sun, lord of the twelfth, in Libra in the second with Mercury; the Moon, lord of the eleventh, in Taurus in the ninth; Saturn, lord of the fifth and sixth, in Aries in the eighth; Rahu in Gemini in the tenth, Ketu in Sagittarius in the fourth. Test one from her side: the relationship began in Jupiter-Mercury, the seventh lord’s major period, the lagna lord’s sub-period; the marrying sub-periods ahead were Jupiter-Venus, the marriage significator’s, and Jupiter-Moon, the eleventh lord’s, with Jupiter-Ketu, the fourth-house Ketu’s fourteen months, between Mercury and Venus. The relationship had to cross Ketu’s sub-period to reach Venus’s. Test two: the seventh lord in the fifth in Capricorn with an exalted Mars gives the spouse met through the romance, working with his hands or in engineering, from a disciplined family; the Darakaraka, Saturn by degree, gives the older, serious, slow-speaking man; he was an engineer, four years older, and quiet. Two of three matched, the seventh lord’s direction and the Darakaraka’s person. Her fifth: Jupiter and Mars in it, its lord Saturn in the eighth, which counts two or three, and this was her second.
His chart: Capricorn lagna. The Moon, lord of the seventh, in Virgo in the ninth; Venus, lord of the fifth and tenth, in Aquarius in the second; Saturn, the lagna lord, in Capricorn in the lagna; Mars, lord of the fourth and eleventh, in Scorpio in the eleventh, its own sign; Jupiter, lord of the third and twelfth, in Cancer in the seventh, exalted; the Sun, lord of the eighth, in Aquarius in the second with Venus and Mercury; Rahu in Leo in the eighth, Ketu in Aquarius in the second. Test one from his side: he was in Venus-Rahu when they met, the fifth lord’s period with Rahu’s sub-period, the romance under an unconventional sub-period, and his marrying sub-periods were Venus-Jupiter, the seventh-house Jupiter’s, two years on, and then Venus-Saturn, his own lagna lord’s. Test three: her Jupiter-Venus and his Venus-Jupiter overlapped for eighteen months, with Jupiter transiting Pisces, her seventh, for the first twelve of them. Seven checks: love marriage promised in her chart by the seventh lord in the fifth and in his by the fifth lord’s period carrying the seventh-house Jupiter’s sub-period; two carrying sub-periods named; two marrying sub-periods named; her relationship had to cross Ketu’s fourteen months and his did not; two of three spouse descriptions matched on her side and, from his seventh lord in the ninth, the far-away, educated partner, matched on his; her fifth counted two or three and this was the second; Jupiter’s transit fell in the shared window. Six of seven, with the Ketu crossing the one doubt. The reading, given in the Ketu sub-period when the relationship had gone quiet and she was sure it was over, said: not over, crossing; the window opens in fourteen months and is eighteen months wide; if this relationship is alive at its opening it marries inside it, and the season to watch is the first year of it. They married in the tenth month of the window. The reading had not promised it; it had named the season and the one crossing, and the crossing was made.
Frequently asked questions
Can astrology tell if I will marry the person I love?
It can answer the particular question, this person, by three tests: whether the dasha sub-period carrying the relationship reaches the sub-period that marries or ends first; whether the person matches the spouse the seventh house, the Navamsa and the Darakaraka describe; and, with both charts, whether the two marriage windows overlap, since two people marry only when both charts say so in the same season. Five of seven checks favourable is the couple that marries; the reading names a season, not a certainty.
How do I know if my current relationship will end in marriage?
Locate the sub-period the relationship began in and the next sub-period that can marry, the seventh lord’s, Venus’s or a seventh-house planet’s. A relationship whose sub-period runs directly into the marrying one is the shape of a love marriage; one that must cross an ending sub-period, the twelfth or eighth lord’s or Ketu’s, to reach it has to survive that season; one that began late in the marrying sub-period marries fast or misses the window. Then check whether the person fits the spouse the chart describes.
Which house shows whether I will marry my boyfriend or girlfriend?
The seventh, whose lord’s placement describes the spouse’s background and direction, and the fifth, which carries the relationship and counts how many there are before the marriage; the eleventh is the fulfilment of the wish and the second the family’s growth, which is why marriage falls in the 2-7-11 lords’ periods. The Navamsa seventh and the Darakaraka describe the spouse’s nature and person, and the partner who matches the description is the one the chart was describing.
Can I know if I will marry a specific person without their birth details?
Yes. A horary chart, cast for the moment of a sincere question or for a number between 1 and 249, answers it: you are the first house, the person the seventh, and the seventh cusp’s lord and sub-lord connected to the second, seventh and eleventh say yes, connected to the sixth, tenth or twelfth say no. The horary answers the question as asked and is read beside your natal chart’s marriage window, since a horary yes with a window four years off is a yes with a wait attached.
My partner says they will marry me; does astrology confirm it?
Not from your chart, which does not contain their intention; it shows whether your own window is open and whether they fit the spouse the chart describes. From their chart the promise can be tested: their marriage window, their fifth-seventh join, and their seventh lord’s condition, since a seventh lord in the twelfth or with Ketu gives the partner who means it and does not do it. A promise is a fifth-house thing until the seventh house carries it, and the reading says whether their seventh is due to carry anything in the next two years.
What if our marriage windows do not overlap?
That is the reading that says not this one, whatever the synastry says, because two people marry when both charts open in the same season and a relationship in which one is ready and the other’s window is years away is the one that waits and then does not. Two windows that overlap once and briefly give the relationship that marries then or not at all, and the couple should be told the season. The reading also says whether the obstacle in the way, family, distance or Saturn’s transit, delays or denies.
How does the reading say “not this one” without saying no to marriage?
In three sentences in order: a love marriage is promised, if it is; the marriage window is in such a sub-period, by date; and this relationship’s period ends before it, or this person does not match the spouse the chart describes, so the marriage the chart promises is with the person it describes, met in the marrying sub-period. That is a season and a description of a person, not a no. A partial match with a brief overlap is a maybe, said as a maybe, and not upgraded because the native hoped.
Seven checks, two charts, one season named.
A relationship consultation runs the double-window test on your chart and your partner's, or on yours alone against the spouse the chart describes, or on a horary when you have nothing of theirs, and tells you whether this relationship reaches its marriage window, whether this person is the spouse your chart describes, and the season in which the two windows meet.