Death in the Houses
Ancient wedding - Vintage illustration from Meyers Konversations-Lexikon 1897
The Nature and Quality of Death in the 8th, 7th, and 4th Houses
The twelve houses, called topos, map the terrain of life experiences a person will encounter from birth until death. Astrologers are unified across traditions in their understanding that the 8th house is a house of death. The tradition identifies the 8th house as succedent and weak, which speaks to the vulnerability of lifeforce in this place. However, while embarking on a deeper study of the houses, students will find ancient authors discussing how the signification of death is present in the traditionally strong and angular 7th house of marriage and the 4th house of family. This begs the question: how do houses with potency and lifeforce contain dual significations of death?
To develop a better understanding of the origins of death in the houses in Hellenistic astrology, we must consider the cultural traditions of the time that informed their understanding. On The Astrology Podcast, Chris Brennan puts forward the idea that:
“Astrology in different time periods is a reflection of the culture of its time. Therefore, if you go back and study ancient astrology, you're getting an inside look at different cultures and what the cultural assumptions are making by seeing the way the astrologers interpret birth charts.”
This essay will explore how cultural Hellenistic traditions with prominent life-affirming events, like marriage, closely parallel funerary rituals in ancient times. Our understanding will be grounded by following the diurnal rotation of planets on their journey of decline into the unknown from rising to setting through the 8th, 7th, and 4th houses respectively.
Defining Death
The Oxford Dictionary defines death in two categories: countable and uncountable. The countable definition is “the fact of somebody dying or being killed” describing a permanent state of finality. The uncountable definition is more nebulous, speaking to a quality of the death processes that leaves room for interpretation. The dictionary outlines at least four interpretations of death including:
When a person reaches old age
A decline in the processes of living beings that cannot be reversed
An end to a way of existing in the world
The symbolic representation of power that destroys life
These death processes are interwoven into the fabric of the 8th, 7th, and 4th places, which will be explored at greater lengths throughout.
The Foundations of These Places
Traditional planets, like the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, do not rejoice in the 8th house, 7th house, or 4th houses, meaning that none of the planets are particularly supported in these environments. When planets pass through these places, they have already passed their highest peaks and are in a state of decline. Ancient astrologers considered this position in the rotation as setting, which is a time of day when, according to Deb Houlding, the “influence is considered to be weaker, more destructive and hostile”. Setting occurs in the western hemisphere of the chart, which lends to the general association of the west with death, decline, weakness, and retreat. The dip of planets beneath the horizon into total darkness was seen as their death into the unknown.
Death in the Eighth House / Place
The 8th house's association with death has been consistent throughout the ancient tradition into modernity. Astrologers in modern times associate this place with psychological transformation, representing the end of one way of being. However, ancient astrologers associated this place with “the completion of life” representing finality. This house is idle and not conducive to life because it’s turned away from the ascendant signifying “the turning away of life”.
The old Greek term Epicataphora is used when describing the 8th place, which means “falling down into the underworld” implying a fall from grace into hidden or unseen realms. Here, an inherent anxiety from the dejection one experiences in the depths is palpable. To learn more about one’s journey to the underworld, Rhetorious instructs astrologers to “examine the ruler of each sign in the 8th, in what sign it is, for that one becomes the significator of death”. He then explores whether one's death will be easy or violent depending on a chart’s unique configuration. In this exercise, one can locate the significator of death to interpret who will be responsible for the death such as kings, enemies, servants, subordinates, or women. He goes on to evaluate whether the death will take place abroad or under conditions of banishment and exile, emphasizing the obscured quality of this house.
Another ancient technique informs how one may benefit or be harmed from death in their lives. If the ruler of the 10th house, 11th house, or 5th house, all of which are considered positive houses, is in the 8th house then one will profit from those who are dead. Conversely, he instructs that when out-of-sect malefic planets operate here one may experience a decline in livelihood, destruction of things, losses, and affairs that do not turn out well that may contribute to a bad death.
Furthermore, when the waxing Moon, growing in light and power, is in this house in a night chart the native will profit from matters of dead people and will obtain an inheritance. According to ancient sect theory, night charts typically aspire to have a waning moon to enhance their nature. It’s interesting to see that to profit from death one must have a moon’s phase and condition that is antithetical to the nature of the nativity at large, which may speak to the challenging nature of the 8th place.
Planetary placements in the 8th house inform who will be impacted by the malefic nature of this place. For example, when the Sun is in the 8th house, the native will experience an early death of their father, because the Sun is a significator of the father in the house of death. Venus in a day chart in the 8th house condemns one to marry later in life or have intercourse with poor women, widows, or very young girls. This Venus placement is known to “destroy the natives” through sexually transmitted diseases so that when the fruits of union emerge from this place it does not come without a cost through the partner.
8th House Cultural Context on Marriage Rites
The 8th house precedes the 7th house of marriage in diurnal rotation. In ancient times, to legitimize a legal marriage and secure a dowry from the father of the wife to the groom to evaluate if she was a suitable bride. A dowry represents an elaborate societal inheritance containing a combination of assets including land, money, goods, servants, and more. This binding exchange proved evidence of marriage and the legitimacy of children in legal arguments.
The 8th place does not aspect and therefore is in aversion to the 7th house of marriage and partners, demonstrating an inherent blindspot between these parts of life. Oftentimes, the groom was a stranger to the bride, and much older than her. Conversations about her marriage prospects happened behind her back, putting her destiny in the hands of the men in her family.
The betrothal ceremony included a ritual confirmation and handshake where the father conducted a transfer of her ownership from father to husband. In this exchange, the father recited: "I give you my daughter to sow for the purpose of producing legitimate children." and the groom responded "I take her" securing her fate into unknown territory. The father’s speech reinforces the importance of producing children to continue the family line, reflecting the trine between the 8th house (partner’s resources) and the 4th house (family, traditions). This sympathetic trine that exists between the 4th house and the 8th house also speaks to the underlying flow of resources between these places. The woman’s dowry and father’s blessing are the impetus that progresses the events that occur in the seventh house through the wedding ceremony and sexual consummation.
Death in the Seventh House / Place
The 7th house is called Setting and contains the angular degree in which planets actually dip below the horizon into darkness. This place opposes the 1st house of life and is often called anti-horoskopos, highlighting its adversarial quality and association with enemies, danger, and death. The 7th house of marriage and partnership squares the 4th house of home, family, and father representing an inherent challenging dynamic between these places in the nativity.
The 7th house signifies the quality of life and death in old age. Planets that are located in this place inform the interpretation of the anticipated experience one may inherit in their old age. Benefic planets like Venus and Jupiter signify an easier transition into old age than the presence of malefic planets Mars and Saturn.
The 7th house also represents the marriage ritual, wedding preparations, sex with the spouse, and the quality of the spouse. Rhetorious instructs that the ruler of the 7th house (partnership) in the 12th house (bad spirit) (or vice versa) results in marriage to a slave or bad luck with marriage. Additionally, when the ruler of the 7th house is aspected by the ruler of the 8th house it makes widows or divorcees.
7th House Cultural Context on Marriage Rites
Marriage was seen as an important social responsibility in ancient times. Fathers married their young virgin daughters between the ages of 14 and 18 to men much older than them, which may speak to the adversarial configuration of the 7th house of marriage and the 4th house of parents.
The word for marriage in Greece is Gamos meaning abduction. This ritual abduction marks the end of childhood and the transition into childbearing years for young girls. Women as wives were expected to bear children and the amount of children that resulted from a marriage ultimately defined its success. The condition of the 7th house in a birth chart speaks to the childbearing potential of brides.
In ancient Greece, Weddings often occurred in Gamelion during Hieros Gamos, or Holy marriage, a celebration honoring Hera and Zeus in January. Wedding celebrations in Athens specifically were held in the darkin the barren winter season, which is not a time conducive to life.
The wedding ceremony occurred in three parts: Proanulia, Gamos, and Epaulia. In the pre-wedding phase of Proanulia, a girl would spend her last days with her mother and sacrifice toys, her virginity girdle, and a lock of hair to Artemis signifying her separation from childhood into adulthood.
During the Gamos wedding ritual, the bride was transferred from her father’s home into the realm of her husband-to-be. The wedding ceremony started with a premarital sacrifice and bridal bath, which closely reflected an underworld death journey:
“The presence in the wedding of elements associated with death, to some extent perhaps actual lamentation, but more important equivocal elements common to the two rights of passage in both wedding and funeral the girl is washed, anointed and given special veil in order to be conveyed on an irreversible torchlit journey on a cart accompanied by song, and to be abandoned by her own kin to an unknown dwelling, an alien bed and the physical control of an unknown male. The unmarried girl is buried in her wedding attire, she is imagined as a bride taken off by Hades.” (Seaford)
The bride is ritually veiled, unable to be seen as the couple departs the wedding banquet in a chariot to her new home. This is a most treacherous journey because according to Mason “the wedding procession represented the most dangerous stage for the bride, the liminal state between her childhood home and her new home as a wife”. The family greeted the couple at the bride’s new house, shouting and cheering. The husband led his wife into the bed chamber to consummate their marriage. During this time, the veil is ritually removed and intercourse ensued. This first sexual union marked the abandonment of the bride’s virginity and is likened to a sacred ritual sacrifice where the bride is the sacrificial victim. Sex with the spouse is a 7th house signification reinforcing the ultimate function of marriage in ancient Greece for reproduction for the benefit and status of the family (4th house).
The final ritual called Epaulia takes place one day after the Gamos. Gifts from family were carried into the couple’s house to reinforce her new status and place as a wife in the household. This was most likely to ease the anxiety of her transition and welcome a new way of being in the world. The bride’s marriage signifies her transition and allegiance from her birth family to her husband’s family. She is to become dually responsible for both the life and death of the family. Her responsibility for life is through her duty of bearing children. Her allegiance to the family in death can be witnessed by her responsibility in overseeing funeral rites to honor cultural family traditions.
Death in the 4th House / Place
The 4th house is called subterraneous or under the earth and represents the lowest, darkest point in the nativity. This place experiences the beginning and ending of all things. The 4th house is by far the most well-aspected of all of the place, which reinforces how foundational family is in any given nativity in life. The 4th house endures challenging square aspects from both the 1st house of life and the 7th house of marriage and death. It has a positive, supportive trine aspect to the 8th house. The positive connection between family, death, and inheritance lends a shared interpretation between topics and potential outcomes of these two places.
The 4th house of family, roots, and foundations represents the beginning of life topics like parents and the house where one is born. Once a woman is married into a new family, she is expected to give birth to future generations of children. Her childbearing capacity contributes to the overall success of a marriage, and therefore family. The birth process, which is a dangerous journey, initiated women from maiden to mother. This transition is the death of one way of being into the world to another.
The 4th place also represents end of life topics including that which comes with the season of old age. According to Rhetorious, when benefic planets Jupiter and Venus reside in the 4th place natives will experience fortunes in old age and a good death. Similarly, when malefic planets Mars and Saturn reside in this place the native will experience a miserable death colored with injury and suffering.
The death of family members becomes a primary delineation of the 4th house. For example, when the Moon in the 4th house aspected Saturn or Mars by hard aspect one will “bury their wives and children” and when Venus is present in the 4th house the native will “see the death of his wife”. Furthermore, if the Sun or the Moon is in this place and the rulers of their signs are cadent (3rd house, 6th house, 9th house, 12th house), then the father (Sun) and mother (moon) will suffer a miserable death, respectively.
Inheritances from death are reflected in the 4th place specifically. Ancient astrologers were looking to understand whether wealth is generated or decimated after death and will be passed on to family. The planets inform this understanding, such as when Mars or Saturn reside here the native will “totally destroy the ancestral possessions,” but when Jupiter is in the 4th in a day chart, the native will “make profit from forbidden activities or inheritances or finding treasure.
Interpretations of 4th house topics like hidden matters, death, family, and inheritance overlap to create a multitude of significations. Rhetorious gives an example when Saturn is in detriment in Cancer in a day chart, he explains that it “shows finders of treasure, and, especially when it is stationary, loss of the parental inheritance, but it will certainly give hidden things and it will destroy the children”. Within this delineation, there is nuanced complexity which includes both positive outcomes over like benefits from finding riches, to negative outcomes like loss to the family wealth status, and challenges to offspring who further the family line. All of these topics do not happen at once, but instead over the course of the life in alignment with Saturn’s challenged placement in this place.
4th House Cultural Context on Funeral Rites
The 4th house includes all the things after death including the performance of proper burial rites. Burial rituals in ancient Greece consisted of three parts, similar to the marriage ritual: prothesis, ekphora, and the commemorative feast. Women, who are the foundations of family life, were primarily responsible for conducting the death rites. Proper burial rights began in the home with the prothesis, which is when the body is laid out, the corpse is washed, anointed with oil, dressed, and placed on display where relatives visit to pay respects.
Ancient Funeral Rites in Greece
The Ekphora is the funeral procession that delivers the body to the cemetery in darkness before the sun rises. This ritual reflects the marriage procession that occurs in the darkness after sunset. During this stage, a procession called the ekphora congregated with musicians, family, and friends united in their sorrow. They grieved together publically, and outwards expressions of mourning were encouraged.
Once the procession reached the burial place the crux of the ceremony look place. The deceased was placed in a small, decorated box, called a larnax, which was then buried or cremated. The burial ground was then marked by decorated tombs and graves to remember the dead. The 4th place governs all hidden matters in the underground like burials and graves.
The final stage was the funeral rites consisted of a commemorative feast in the name of the family member who passed. This was a way to give gratitude to those in the family and close to the family who participated in the funeral rites to honor the deceased. Frequent visits after the burial were expected for at least 30 days, under the changing phases of the moon.
In ancient Greece, there was an emphasis placed on honoring the dead in perpetuity. Families would often visit the graves of their ancestors to bring offerings of life like food and wine. Commemoration of the dead unites life with death, merging the living with the dead.
Final Reflections
In Hellenistic times, death was not separate from life, it was a foundational part of it. Throughout the ancient astrological tradition, 8th, 7th, and 4th places are markers of death. Each place’s uniquely challenging relationship with the Horoskopos, the marker of life, in the structure of any given birth chart these aspect relationships exhibits the quality and nature of death in these places. The process of death of dying in its multitude of forms and experiences was intricately interwoven through the course of ritual milestones prominent in nativities. By studying how Hellenistic societies conducted life and death ceremonies similarly, we gain cultural context that helps us understand the integration of death in strong and angular houses. The cultural impulse in Hellenistic times to merge life’s most significant moments with death can help us more closely understand their people’s relationship to death as a way to usher us through life's transitions.
Note from the author: This essay was written in 2021 as part of certification exam work for Demetra George’s Hellenistic astrology certification curriculum.
Resources
“A History of Greek Funerals.” Basic Funerals, November 21, 2016. https://basicfunerals.ca/cultural-funerals/history-greek-funerals/.
Alexandrinus, Paulus, and Robert Schmidt . “Paulus Alexandrinus: Introductory Matters.” Paulus. Project Hindsight , 1993.
Brennan, Chris. “Post Colonial Astrology, with Alice Sparkly Cat” The Astrology Podcast, April 12, 2021
Houlding, Deborah. The Houses: Temples of the Sky. Bournemouth, England: Wessex Astrologer Limited, 2007.
“Marriage in Ancient Greece.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, March 30, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_ancient_Greece.
Mason, Casey. “The Nuptial Ceremony of Ancient Greece and the Articulation of Male Control Through Ritual.” Digital Commons. Classics Honors Projects, 2006. https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&co ntext=classics_honors.
Rhetorious. Rhetorius The Egyptian. Translated by James H. Holden. Tempe, AZ: American Federation of Astrologers, 2009.
Seaford, Richard. The Tragic Wedding. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.