The Fourth House

Where you come from

At the bottom of every birth chart is a point most people never notice. It is the place where the zodiac crosses the meridian below the horizon, on the far side of the Earth, exactly opposite the Midheaven. It is a calculated point rather than the spot directly beneath your feet, but it marks the lowest part of the sky's daily turning: the Sun passes it at around midnight.

Astrologers call that point the Imum Coeli, the bottom of the sky, and the house around it is the Fourth.

The Fourth House is the house of roots: home, family, ancestry, land and property, and the private foundations a life is built on.

It is the deepest and most private part of the chart. The First House is the face you show; the Tenth, at the top of the chart, is the reputation you build in public. The Fourth is what lies underneath both: where you come from, where you go home to at night, and, in the oldest texts, how things end.

What the Fourth House rules

Home and family

The Fourth House is where you live and who you live with: the home you grew up in, the home you make, and the family atmosphere in both. It describes your sense of belonging and what you need in order to feel settled.

Parents and ancestors

Traditional astrologers gave the Fourth House to the father, with the mother going to the Tenth. Many modern astrologers reverse this, or give the Fourth to whichever parent did most of the nurturing. The history section below explains the argument. Whichever parent it shows, the Fourth House also reaches back through the generations to grandparents, ancestors and family heritage.

Land and property

This is the house of immovable property: land, houses, buildings, farms, gardens and estates. The Second House rules what you can carry; the Fourth rules what stays in the ground. Mines, minerals and buried treasure were Fourth House matters in the old texts.

Endings

The oldest and least-known meaning of the Fourth House is the end of the matter. Because it is the lowest point of the chart, where the Sun reaches midnight, traditional astrologers read it for how things conclude, including the end of life and the grave. In horary astrology the Fourth House is still used to judge how a question will turn out in the end.

The common thread

Everything here is foundation: the ground under your feet, the family you come from, the home you return to, and the point where every cycle ends and the next begins.

The Fourth House through history

The general story of the houses is told in A Short History of the Houses. This section follows the Fourth House's own part in it.

The subterranean place

The Greek astrologers called the fourth place the hypogeion, the subterranean or underground place, because it lies beneath the Earth, opposite the Midheaven. Latin writers called the point at its heart the imum caelum or imum coeli, the lowest part of the sky, which is the name astrologers still use.

As one of the four angles, the fourth place was strong. But being underground, it was also hidden. From the start it was linked to what lies beneath and behind a life: parents and ancestors, land and foundations, and the end of things.

Genitor

In the medieval Latin memory rhyme the Fourth House is genitor, the father, the one who begets. The rhyme gives the mother no house of her own; traditional astrologers put her in the Tenth.

William Lilly

Lilly's Christian Astrology (1647) gives the Fourth House the father of the person asking; lands, houses, tenements, estates and inheritances; the tilling of the ground; treasure hidden in the earth; towns, cities and castles; old buildings, gardens, fields and orchards; and "the end of anything". For the body he gives the breast and lungs, and for its colour, red.

Father or mother?

Few questions in house astrology have caused as much argument. The tradition, from the Latin rhyme to Lilly, gave the father to the Fourth and the mother to the Tenth. In the twentieth century many astrologers reversed this. Their reasoning was that the Fourth House is home and nurture, matters they associated with the mother, and that the Tenth is public authority, which they associated with the father. Others now give the Fourth to whichever parent provided the home and the Tenth to whichever represented the outside world.

This book follows the tradition, the Fourth for the father, while noting the modern alternatives. When you read a chart, say which convention you are using. Traditional astrologers also judged the parents through particular planets, explained in the section on significators below, and those often matter more than the house.

The modern Fourth House

Modern astrology kept land, home and family, and added psychological depth: the Fourth became the house of emotional foundations, early conditioning, the private self, and the sense of belonging. It is often described as the root of the chart, the part of you no one else sees.

What has survived

Home, land, family and the end of matters have stayed with the Fourth House throughout. Only the question of which parent belongs here has ever been seriously disputed.

Where the Fourth House sits

At the foot of the chart

The Fourth House sits at the bottom of the chart, the third sign on from the rising sign. With whole sign houses, Libra rising gives a Capricorn Fourth House, Aries rising a Cancer one, and so on.

It lies in the lower half of the chart, associated with private life, and it is the deepest point of that half. It is also where the chart turns: the First, Second and Third Houses belong to the eastern half, associated with the self, and the Fourth begins the western half, associated with other people. Home and family are the first "others" any of us meets.

An angle

The Fourth is an angular house, one of the four strongest. Lilly ranked it fourth of the four angles, after the First, Tenth and Seventh, but still well above every other house. Planets here are said to act strongly, though privately: their effects show at home and in the family more than in public.

The angle at the heart of this house is the Imum Coeli (IC), exactly opposite the Midheaven. In quadrant house systems the IC is the starting point of the Fourth House. With whole sign houses, as Chapter One explains, the IC falls inside a house rather than at its edge: usually the Fourth, sometimes the Third or the Fifth. When it falls outside the Fourth, astrologers read both the house and the IC, and note the difference.

It can see the First House

The Fourth is three signs from the rising sign, a square. It can see the Ascendant, but at an angle traditionally read as tension. Home and family shape the self strongly, though not always comfortably: roots can steady you or hold you back.

The partner: the Tenth House

Directly opposite lies the Tenth House: career, reputation, public standing and authority. The axis between them is the axis of private and public, of roots and achievements, home and work. Traditionally it is also the axis of father and mother. A life spent building a career at the expense of home, or giving up ambition for family, is a story told along this axis.

The Fourth and Tenth are the two halves of the meridian, the line running from the top of the sky to the bottom. Together with the First and Seventh, on the horizon, they make up the four angles: the framework of the whole chart.

The twelve signs on the Fourth House

The sign on the Fourth House describes the atmosphere of home and family, and what you need in order to feel at home. With whole sign houses it is always the third sign after your rising sign, so each entry names the rising sign that produces it.

These are symbolic tendencies, not a description of your actual family. Read the sign with any planets in the house, its ruler, and the sign of the IC if it differs.

Aries on the Fourth House

Capricorn rising. Home is lively, busy and sometimes combative. You may have grown up in a household of strong wills and quick tempers, and you like a home you can act in: a base for projects rather than a place to sit still. You may move house often, or rebuild and renovate.

• Strengths: independence, energy at home, courage in family matters.
• Watch-outs: domestic friction, and restlessness when life is too settled.
• Ruler: Mars.

Taurus on the Fourth House

Aquarius rising. Home is comfortable, solid and slow to change. You value a well-furnished, secure base, good food and a garden, and you may hold on to the same house or family possessions for many years. Stability at home steadies everything else.

• Strengths: security, loyalty to family, a gift for making a comfortable home.
• Watch-outs: resistance to moving on, and possessiveness about home and family.
• Ruler: Venus.

Gemini on the Fourth House

Pisces rising. Home is full of talk, books and comings and goings. You may have grown up in a busy, chatty household, moved several times, or had two homes. You need mental stimulation at home and may work or study from there.

• Strengths: lively family communication, adaptability, a home full of ideas.
• Watch-outs: restlessness, a scattered household, and difficulty settling.
• Ruler: Mercury.

Cancer on the Fourth House

Aries rising. A natural fit: Cancer is the sign most associated with home, family and the past. Home and family matter deeply, and you are strongly attached to your roots, your relatives and your memories. You may care for family members, keep heirlooms, or make home a refuge.

• Strengths: devotion to family, emotional security, a talent for nurturing.
• Watch-outs: clinging to the past, and moods that colour the whole household.
• Ruler: the Moon.

Leo on the Fourth House

Taurus rising. Home is a place of warmth, pride and some ceremony. You like a home that impresses, may take the lead in family life, and may have grown up with a strong, proud parent at its centre. Family celebrations and creative projects at home matter to you.

• Strengths: generosity, family pride, a welcoming home.
• Watch-outs: domestic drama, and needing to rule the roost.
• Ruler: the Sun.

Virgo on the Fourth House

Gemini rising. Home is orderly, practical and well maintained. You may have grown up in a household of routines, duties and modest means, and you prefer a home that works properly over one that impresses. You may work from home, or be the one who looks after everyone's practical needs.

• Strengths: care, competence, a well-run home.
• Watch-outs: domestic worry, and criticism of the household.
• Ruler: Mercury.

Libra on the Fourth House

Cancer rising. Home is a place of harmony, beauty and good manners, or at least you want it to be. You need a peaceful, attractive home and may go to some lengths to keep the peace in the family. Home life is often shared closely with a partner.

• Strengths: a gracious home, fairness in family matters, a gift for making peace.
• Watch-outs: avoiding family conflict instead of resolving it, and dependence on others for a sense of home.
• Ruler: Venus.

Scorpio on the Fourth House

Leo rising. Home is private, intense and guarded. Family life may have held secrets, strong emotions or deep loyalties, and you need a home that is truly your own, closed to outsiders. You may inherit property or be bound up in family finances.

• Strengths: fierce loyalty, privacy, resilience through family upheaval.
• Watch-outs: secrecy, control at home, and old family wounds.
• Ruler: Mars in traditional astrology; Pluto in modern astrology.

Sagittarius on the Fourth House

Virgo rising. Home is open, generous and often on the move. You may have grown up in a household of strong beliefs, mixed backgrounds, or travel, and you may settle far from where you were born. You need room and freedom at home, and a home full of books or visitors.

• Strengths: hospitality, optimism, a broad-minded family outlook.
• Watch-outs: restlessness, and finding it hard to put down roots.
• Ruler: Jupiter.

Capricorn on the Fourth House

Libra rising, as in this book's example chart. Home is serious, structured and built to last. You may have grown up with responsibility, discipline or austerity, or with a strong sense of duty to family and tradition. Security at home is something you work for, and it often comes later in life, but it tends to be solid when it comes.

• Strengths: reliability, respect for tradition, a home built on solid foundations.
• Watch-outs: emotional reserve at home, and carrying family duties as a burden.
• Ruler: Saturn.

Aquarius on the Fourth House

Scorpio rising. Home is unconventional. You may have grown up in an unusual household, among friends as much as family, or with ideals that set the family apart. You need independence at home and may prefer shared or community living to a traditional family set-up.

• Strengths: tolerance, originality, a home open to friends.
• Watch-outs: emotional distance in the family, and a sense of not quite belonging.
• Ruler: Saturn in traditional astrology; Uranus in modern astrology.

Pisces on the Fourth House

Sagittarius rising. Home is a sanctuary, sometimes a dream. You need a quiet, peaceful retreat, perhaps near water, and you may idealise family or home. Family life may have been loving but chaotic, or marked by absence or sacrifice.

• Strengths: compassion, a peaceful home, deep sensitivity to family.
• Watch-outs: blurred boundaries at home, and escaping from family problems instead of facing them.
• Ruler: Jupiter in traditional astrology; Neptune in modern astrology.

Planets in the Fourth House

A planet in the Fourth House is on an angle, so it is strong, but its strength shows in private: in the home, in family life, and in the inner foundations of the personality. A planet close to the IC is especially emphasised.

The benefics, malefics and luminaries are explained in Chapter One. An empty Fourth House is common, and this chapter's worked example shows how to read one.

The Sun in the Fourth House

With the Sun here, you were born in the hours around midnight. Your sense of identity is rooted in home, family and heritage, and you may feel most yourself in private rather than in public. A strong father, or a strong identification with one parent, is common, and family tradition may shape your purpose. Many people with this placement come into their own later in life.

• At its best: a secure sense of self, pride in family, loyalty.
• Under strain: living in a parent's shadow, and reluctance to step outside the home.
• Tradition: a luminary on an angle, strong but hidden below the Earth, read as an important, perhaps dominant, father.

The Moon in the Fourth House

The Moon here is deeply at home. Feelings are bound up with family, home and the past, and you need a secure base more than most. A close bond with a mother or caregiver is typical, and you may move house several times, following the Moon's restless rhythm, or stay devotedly in one place.

• At its best: emotional security, a nurturing home, a long memory for family.
• Under strain: moodiness at home, and difficulty leaving the nest.
• Tradition: a luminary on an angle, read as concern with land, home and family, and changes of residence.

Mercury in the Fourth House

Mercury here brings the mind home. You may study, write or work from home, keep family records, or have grown up in a household of talk and books. Your thinking is shaped by your upbringing, and you may be interested in history, genealogy or the past.

• At its best: family communication, a thoughtful private mind, interest in roots.
• Under strain: a restless home life, and worries that circle round family matters.
• Tradition: neutral by nature; takes its colour from the planets it is joined to.

Venus in the Fourth House

Venus here makes home a place of comfort and affection. You love a beautiful, welcoming home, enjoy family life, and may inherit property or valuable possessions. Relations with parents, especially traditionally the father, are often warm.

• At its best: a happy home, family harmony, taste in decoration and gardens.
• Under strain: avoiding family conflict, and overspending on the home.
• Tradition: a benefic on an angle in the house of land, read as good fortune through property, family and inheritance, and a peaceful end of life.

Mars in the Fourth House

Mars here brings energy and friction into the home. You may have grown up in a lively or quarrelsome household, and you put a great deal of effort into home life: building, renovating, defending the family. Anger may be kept private and expressed at home rather than in public.

• At its best: courage in protecting the family, energy for home projects.
• Under strain: domestic arguments, and tension with a parent.
• Tradition: a malefic on an angle, read as quarrels with the father, disputes over property, or damage to buildings by fire. Less harsh in a night chart, where Mars belongs.

Jupiter in the Fourth House

Jupiter here brings generosity and growth to home and family. You may come from a large, warm or comfortable family, live in a spacious home, or gain through property and inheritance. Life often improves with age, and the later years tend to be good.

• At its best: a happy, generous home, family support, good fortune in property.
• Under strain: over-indulgence at home, and taking on more house than you can manage.
• Tradition: the greater benefic on an angle, one of the best placements for land, inheritance, the father's fortune and a comfortable old age.

Saturn in the Fourth House

Saturn here makes home and family a place of duty and seriousness. You may have grown up with a strict, absent or burdened parent, with hardship, or with heavy responsibility at home. The foundations of your life are built slowly and deliberately, and often only feel secure in later life, but what you build tends to last.

• At its best: responsibility, respect for tradition, durable foundations.
• Under strain: emotional coldness at home, and a sense of family as a burden.
• Tradition: the greater malefic on an angle in the house of the father and of land, read as difficulties with the father, losses through property, or a hard old age, especially in a night chart.

Uranus in the Fourth House

Uranus, a modern addition, brings disruption and independence to home and family. You may have grown up in an unusual or unsettled household, moved often or suddenly, or broken away from family tradition. You need freedom at home and may live in unconventional ways.

• At its best: independence, originality, freedom from family expectations.
• Under strain: instability at home, and a restless sense of never quite settling.
• Tradition: none.

Neptune in the Fourth House

Neptune, a modern addition, softens and blurs the foundations. Home may be idealised, a place of dreams, art or spiritual retreat; family may be loving but hard to pin down, with absences, secrets or confusion. You may long for an ideal home that no real house can quite match.

• At its best: a peaceful, imaginative home, compassion for family.
• Under strain: confusion about roots, and disappointment with family.
• Tradition: none.

Pluto in the Fourth House

Pluto, a modern addition, brings intensity and transformation to the foundations. Family life may have involved power struggles, secrets, crises or profound change, and you may rebuild your home and your sense of belonging more than once.

• At its best: deep resilience, the power to transform family patterns.
• Under strain: control within the family, and old wounds that resurface.
• Tradition: none.

The Lunar Nodes

A Node in the Fourth House always means the other Node is in the Tenth, so these entries are about the balance between private and public life. Chapter One explains the Nodes in full.

North Node in the Fourth House

The direction of growth is toward home, family and inner life. You may be used to striving for status and achievement, and life asks you to put down roots and attend to what is private.

• Modern reading: growth through home and belonging, with public ambition (the South Node in the Tenth) as the comfortable habit.
• Medieval reading: an increase in land, property and family affairs.

South Node in the Fourth House

Home and family come easily, perhaps too easily. With the North Node in the Tenth, growth lies in stepping out into the world: career, public responsibility and achievement.

• Modern reading: growth through public life, with retreating into the family as the comfortable habit.
• Medieval reading: a diminishing point in the house of land and the father.

The ruler of the Fourth House

The planet that rules the sign on the Fourth House shows where home, family and roots lead in your life. For an empty Fourth House, as in this book's example chart, the ruler carries most of the reading. This book uses the classical rulers, with the modern ruler of Scorpio, Aquarius or Pisces as a second opinion.

From the Fourth House, the four houses that cannot see it are the Third, Fifth, Ninth and Eleventh.

Ruler of the 4th in the 1st

Read more in Chapter One: The First House; compare the ruler of the 1st in the 4th.

Home and family are part of who you are. You carry your roots with you, identify strongly with family or a parent, and may take after one closely. Wherever you go, you make it home.

• In life: the person whose family name is their identity, the home-maker, the heir.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests secure foundations for the self; weak suggests a family weight carried personally.

Ruler of the 4th in the 2nd

Read more in Chapter Two: The Second House; compare the ruler of the 2nd in the 4th.

Home, family and property are bound up with money. You may inherit, earn from property, invest in land, or spend heavily on the home. Family may support you financially, or depend on you.

• In life: the landlord, the property investor, the person whose wealth is in bricks and mortar.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests wealth through property and family; weak suggests family costs that eat into income.

Ruler of the 4th in the 3rd

Read more in Chapter Three: The Third House; compare the ruler of the 3rd in the 4th.

Home is linked with siblings, neighbours, the local area and communication. You may live near siblings, share a family home with them, move locally several times, or write about family and place.

• In life: the family historian, the local writer, the sibling who keeps the family home.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests close local and family ties; weak suggests unsettled moves or disputes with siblings over the family home.
• Note: the Third cannot see the Fourth.

Ruler of the 4th in the 4th

The ruler is at home in its own house. Home, family and roots are strong and self-sustaining. You may live in one place for a long time, inherit the family home, or build a strong family base.

• In life: the person who never moves far, the head of the family, the keeper of tradition.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests stability and good fortune in property; weak suggests being bound to home and family.

Ruler of the 4th in the 5th

Read more in Chapter Five: The Fifth House.

Home is a place of pleasure, creativity and children. Family life revolves around enjoyment, play or children, and you may work creatively from home or invest in property for pleasure.

• In life: the family that entertains, the home studio, the parent whose home is full of children.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests a happy, creative home; weak suggests speculation with property or family resources.
• Note: the Fifth cannot see the Fourth.

Ruler of the 4th in the 6th

Read more in Chapter Six: The Sixth House.

Home is linked with work, service, routine and health. You may work from home, care for family members, or live where you work. Home life may involve hard work, duties or health concerns.

• In life: the carer, the home-based worker, the live-in employee.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests a well-run, useful home; weak suggests domestic burdens or health matters affecting the family.

Ruler of the 4th in the 7th

Read more in Chapter Seven: The Seventh House.

Home is bound up with partnership. You may make your home through marriage, live with a partner's family, or share property with a partner or business associate. The partner may shape your sense of belonging.

• In life: the couple who build a home together, the person who marries into a family home.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests a shared, settled home; weak suggests disputes over property or a home that depends on someone else.

Ruler of the 4th in the 8th

Read more in Chapter Eight: The Eighth House.

Home and family are tied up with shared resources, inheritance, debts and endings. You may inherit property, live in a partner's home, or deal with family estates and legacies.

• In life: the heir, the executor, the person who moves into an inherited house.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests gain through family legacies; weak suggests family debts, disputes over wills, or upheaval at home.

Ruler of the 4th in the 9th

Read more in Chapter Nine: The Ninth House.

Home is linked with distant places, travel, belief or learning. You may settle abroad, live far from where you grew up, come from a family with strong beliefs, or make home somewhere connected with study or religion.

• In life: the emigrant, the expatriate, the family with roots in another country.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests a good home far afield; weak suggests rootlessness.
• Note: the Ninth cannot see the Fourth.

Ruler of the 4th in the 10th

Read more in Chapter Ten: The Tenth House.

Home and career are linked across the chart's main axis. You may work from home, follow a parent's profession, run a family business, or work in property. Family name and public reputation may go together.

• In life: the family firm, the estate agent, the heir to a profession.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests a career built on solid family foundations; weak suggests tension between home and work.

Ruler of the 4th in the 11th

Read more in Chapter Eleven: The Eleventh House.

Home is linked with friends, groups and communities. You may live among friends, in a shared or community house, or treat friends as family. Hopes for the future may centre on a home.

• In life: the shared household, the co-operative, the family of friends.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests support from friends in home matters; weak suggests a home crowded by others.
• Note: the Eleventh cannot see the Fourth.

Ruler of the 4th in the 12th

Read more in Chapter Twelve: The Twelfth House.

Home and family are linked with what is hidden, private or institutional. There may be family secrets, a parent who was absent or unwell, or a home that is a retreat from the world. You may live in a secluded place or close to an institution.

• In life: the recluse, the carer of an elderly parent, the person who lives quietly.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests a peaceful, private home; weak suggests hidden family troubles or isolation.

The Fourth House beyond the birth chart

Significators of the parents

Traditional astrologers did not judge the parents from houses alone. They used two pairs of planets, chosen by whether the chart is a day chart or a night chart:

The planet for the father is read alongside the Fourth House and its ruler, and the planet for the mother alongside the Tenth (or the other way round, if you follow the modern convention). Where the significator and the house agree, the reading is strong; where they disagree, the astrologer weighs both.

Natural significators of the house

• Saturn, the slow, heavy planet of the earth, is the traditional natural significator of land, buildings, old things and ancestors.
• The Moon is the natural significator of the home and the household, especially in modern astrology.

Horary astrology

In a horary chart the Fourth House covers the querent's father; houses, land and property; things lost or buried at home; and, importantly, the end of the matter. Horary astrologers look to the Fourth House to see how any question will finally turn out. Typical questions are "Should I buy this house?", "Will the sale go through?" and "Is the lost item still in the house?"

Mundane astrology

In charts for nations, the Fourth House is the land itself: its territory, agriculture, natural resources, and the ordinary people's homes. Some mundane astrologers also give it to the political opposition, as the counterpart to the government in the Tenth.

Electional astrology

Electional astrologers look to the Fourth House when choosing a time to move house, buy or sell property, lay foundations or begin building. A strong Fourth House and ruler, and a Moon well placed, are the traditional aims.

When the Fourth House switches on

The timing methods are explained in Chapter One. Here they are applied to the Fourth House, with one addition: because the Fourth House contains an angle, transits over the IC itself are watched closely.

Profection years

The Fourth House is activated in the year beginning on your birthday at these ages:

3, 15, 27, 39, 51, 63, 75, 87

In those years home, family, property and parents come to the fore. In the example chart, with Capricorn on the Fourth, the lord of the year is Saturn.

Transits through the Fourth House

• Jupiter (about a year): a good time for moving, improving the home, family gatherings and property.
• Saturn (about two and a half years): responsibilities at home, caring for parents, building or buying property, and the hard work of laying foundations.
• Uranus (about seven years): sudden moves, changes in family structure, breaking away from the past.
• Neptune (about fourteen years): a softening or dissolving of old foundations; idealism about home, or confusion about where you belong.
• Pluto (twelve to thirty years): deep transformation of home, family and roots.

A slow planet crossing the IC itself, the angle at the heart of the house, is read as a turning point in private life.

The example chart through the years

In the 1955 Bangor chart the Fourth House is Capricorn, with the IC at 4°43′ Capricorn. The house holds no planets, so the transits through it and over the IC carry most of its timing.

• Saturn, the Fourth House's own ruler, crossed the IC at ages 3 and 4 (February to November 1959), at 33 (December 1988) and at 62 (January to October 2018). These are the classic Saturn cycles of roughly 29 years.
• Neptune was in Capricorn from 1984 to 1998, ages 28 to 43, and crossed the IC during 1986, at ages 30 and 31.
• Uranus was in Capricorn from 1988 to 1996, ages 32 to 40, and crossed the IC between March and December 1989, at ages 33 and 34.
• Pluto was in Capricorn from 2008 to 2024, ages 52 to 69, and crossed the IC during 2010, at ages 54 and 55.

The striking pattern is the cluster from 1986 to 1989, when Neptune, Saturn and Uranus crossed the IC within four years, at ages 30 to 34. An astrologer would read that as the period when this person's home, roots and private foundations changed most decisively, with a second major change under Pluto around 2010.

Worked example: Bangor, 16 November 1955

The example chart is the one used throughout the book: 03:00 GMT on 16 November 1955, Bangor, Libra rising, a night chart. Its Fourth House is the first empty house we have met, so this example shows the standard method for reading a house with no planets in it: work through the sign, the angle, the ruler and the significators instead.

Step 1: the sign on the house

With Libra rising, the Fourth House is Capricorn. Capricorn on the Fourth suggests a serious, structured home life: responsibility, tradition and duty, with security built slowly and often coming later in life.

The IC, the angle at the heart of the house, is at 4°43′ Capricorn, so in this chart the angle and the house agree.

Step 2: planets in the house

There are none, under whole sign houses or Placidus. That does not make home and family unimportant. It means their story is told elsewhere in the chart, through the ruler.

Step 3: the ruler and where it sits

Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, under both the classical and the modern schemes. Saturn is at 23°42′ Scorpio in the Second House, less than a degree from the Sun.

So the ruler of the 4th is in the 2nd: home, family and property are bound up with money and resources. Traditionally this suggests family wealth or property as a resource, or a home that has to be paid for by your own steady effort. The Second House can see the Fourth (two signs apart, a sextile), so the connection is direct.

Chapter Two found Saturn there already, reading it as security built slowly through responsibility. The Fourth House adds that this security is, at root, about home and foundations.

Step 4: the condition of the ruler

• By sign, Saturn is neutral in Scorpio.
• By sect, Saturn belongs to the day, so in a night chart it is contrary to sect, traditionally harder to handle.
• By the Sun, Saturn is combust, hidden in the Sun's glare, which the old texts read as weakened or obscured. As in Chapter Two, combustion is an optional layer your course has not yet covered.
• By aspect, Saturn squares Pluto in the Eleventh (4°51′), within the book's 6° orb.

A ruler that is serious, somewhat hidden and under pressure describes foundations that take work: a home life shaped by duty and effort rather than ease.

Step 5: the angle

The IC itself makes two aspects within 6°, both by degree rather than by sign: a trine from Jupiter in Leo (4°49′) and a sextile from Neptune in Libra (5°50′). Leo and Capricorn are not a trine apart, nor Libra and Capricorn a sextile, so both are out-of-sign aspects, which some astrologers discount. If counted, they soften the picture: some generosity (Jupiter) and some idealism (Neptune) reaching the roots of the chart.

Step 6: the significators of the parents

This is a night chart, so the traditional significator of the father is Saturn, and of the mother, the Moon.

• The father. Saturn is both the ruler of the Fourth House and the night significator of the father, and it sits right beside the Sun, which signifies the father in day charts. Every traditional indicator of the father converges on one point in the Second House. An astrologer would read the father as a central, serious and perhaps demanding figure, associated with work, duty and money, and partly hidden from view.
• The mother. The Moon is in its joy in the Third House, alongside Venus, the chart ruler. It also rules Cancer, the sign of the Tenth House and the Midheaven, the traditional house of the mother. Every traditional indicator of the mother is well placed: warm, communicative and close.
• The two together. Saturn in Scorpio and the Moon in Sagittarius are in neighbouring signs, so they cannot see each other. Traditionally that suggests two parents occupying quite separate spheres in the person's life.

As ever, these are symbolic readings, not facts about anyone's real family. They show how an astrologer combines the house, its ruler and the significators into one picture.

Step 7: timing

The profection years are 3, 15, 27, 39, 51, 63 and 75, with Saturn as lord of the year. The sharpest period is 1986 to 1989, ages 30 to 34, when Neptune, Saturn and Uranus each crossed the IC.

Putting it together

Home and family are serious matters in this life, built on duty and steady effort rather than ease (Capricorn on the Fourth, ruled by Saturn). The foundations are tied to money and work: security at home is earned, slowly, through the person's own resources (the ruler in the Second). The father, in traditional terms, is a central, serious figure bound up with work and responsibility, while the mother is warm, close and communicative; the two occupy separate spheres. The roots of the chart run deeper and more privately than the friendly surface suggests, and the years from about 30 to 34 are likely to have been the main turning point in home and family life.

The lesson of an empty house

The Fourth House here has no planets at all, yet it yields a detailed reading. That is the general rule: an empty house is read through its sign, its angle if it has one, its ruler, and the natural significators of its topics. Often the ruler tells you more than a planet in the house would, because it shows where that part of life is actually lived.

The Fourth House at a glance

Further reading

• Deborah Houlding, The Houses: Temples of the Sky (1998). Especially good on the father–mother question.
• William Lilly, Christian Astrology (1647). Book One for the house meanings; Book Two for horary questions about houses, land and the end of the matter.
• Chris Brennan, Hellenistic Astrology (2017). The subterranean place, and the day and night significators of the parents.
• Howard Sasportas, The Twelve Houses (1985). The modern psychological Fourth House.