Houses for Mother and Father

Hello Astrologers,
I started learning astrology and had read a book saying House 4 of the zodiac was attributed to the father and House 10 was for the mother.

Then, another astrologer told me that this was the "old" belief in astrology and the mother and father are now in different houses.

Can someone clarify please?

I studied astrology many years ago, but I'm really quite rusty at what I remember, but I don't ever remember the houses being mother and father, the 4th house is home and family, and the 10th house is social status and career, which is different from work which is in house 6 if I remember correctly, I can see how mother could be related to the 4th house as its about Home and family, and father in 10th because of it being the social status of the bread winner, so 4th house/homemaker/mother and 10th house/breadwinner/father.

But as far as I'm aware no houses have ever been moved and none have ever been named mother and father to my knowledge anyway.

Maybe this was just the personal views of the author of the book you read, but to me 4th Is Home/Family and 10th Social Status/Career


ETA/ I did a little online research on this new thing with mother and father, and as far as I can make out this something that some astrologers use and certain astrologers will change the houses as a personal preference for how they read charts.

Imo I'd stick to studying classic astrology.

You are all correct. "Traditional" or "classical" astrology attributes the father to the 4th house and mother to the 10th house. Modern, psychological astrologers (beginning to be popular in the 1930s?) often switch them for the reasons tigerangel gives: Home and family seem closer to mother, while social status and ambition seem closer to father.

Also, modern astrologers often (too closely for traditionalists) associate the houses with the corresponding signs: 4th house with Cancer, ruled by moon, definitely seems too feminine for a father . . .

The traditional attributions are probably a relic of patriarchy (or at least patrilineality): The father is connected to home and family because a child is part of the father's family. The mother is an outsider, or at most a transplant from another family.

I've even come up with a theory for the mother attribution to the 10th house: It's the mother's duty to educate a child, at least in his/her earliest years, so she is the one who gives him/her a start toward goals, career, and status.

I'm no astrologer, just an interested observer, so here are my 2 cents to take with a pinch of salt!

The Houses originated very early in the development of Horoscopic Astrology. The most used system is the twelve houses or places (Dodekatopos in Greek) But there was an alternative system of eight houses or places (Oktotopos) for a time. Both shared the same allocation for the fourth house. It was the House of Parents. The House of the Home and the House of the City (country) and for some The House of Mystical Matters. Those were the 'topics' that it covered.

You will notice that it's 'parents' not 'father' or 'mother'.

Now rachelcat is probably correct to identify patriarchy as the reason why it became to be identified with the father, when only one of the parents was being considered, and the mother became associated with the tenth, which by derived houses is the seventh house of marriage for the person signified by the fourth house. Certainly by the early medieval period and probably the late classical period, the fourth was seen as the House of the Father and the tenth as the House of the Mother. It remained so until the mid twentieth century.

As rachelcat points out the then modern approach began to reverse the association but did so on the basis of it's view of Cancer as the fourth Sign. The link between Houses, Signs and Planets as seen by the psychological view is both historically and theoretically incorrect. Houses are linked to the Ascendant, which can be in any sign. The Moon might rule Cancer but it hasn't any natural association with the fourth house. In the Thema Mundi, which was a hypothetical birth chart for the world, Cancer is on the Ascedant (So the Moon, has a natural association with mundane affairs and is used in that contex by modern Astrologers).

An older system of Planetary Joys associates the Moon with the third house - the House of the Goddess.

Now there is a natural association of the Moon with the mother, but also with the wife and any mature female. Venus is associated with younger women but can stand for the wife in certain circumstances.

So which should you use?

I use the fourth for parents (both). If I have to differentiate between the two, I try and look for the circumstances. For a single mother, I'd use the fourth without any question. If the mother is the main wage earner and supporter, I'd also use the fourth for the mother. I'd use the fourth for the mother in a matriarchal society. But for most of the Western world (and indeed the world as a whole), patriarchy still reigns. So if I have to consider the two parents separately but need to refer to both, I'd use the father for the fourth and the mother for the tenth. In the event of having to consider one parent only (either mother or father) there's a very good case for using the fourth for that parent. The Hellenistic assignments did not put the mother in the tenth or only the father in the fourth.

It is true though that Hellenistic society was patriarchal and they rarely considered the mother on her own, unless she was very important, such as a queen (in which case she got the third by virtue of her royal rank).

(Oh. The wife of the father = the seventh house from the fourth house. Makes so much more sense than my half-a$$ed theory! )

Thank you all for your feedback. I need to print this thread out tomorrow morning. After reading it all, I will return to leave individualized feedback per poster. Thank you all so very much.

@Tigerangel
Yes, I've heard the family and house is House 4. I'll remember to add the reputation for House 10. I'm definitely going to stick to the traditional house attributes.

@rachelkat
big thank you explaining how the change together for me! Now I understand how that house change evolved. And your second post cracked me up! I didn't think your theory was half-a$$ed. It adds to the allure of the houses! Thank you again!

Minderwiz said:

I use the fourth for parents (both). If I have to differentiate between the two, I try and look for the circumstances. For a single mother, I'd use the fourth without any question. If the mother is the main wage earner and supporter, I'd also use the fourth for the mother. I'd use the fourth for the mother in a matriarchal society. But for most of the Western world (and indeed the world as a whole), patriarchy still reigns. So if I have to consider the two parents separately but need to refer to both, I'd use the father for the fourth and the mother for the tenth. In the event of having to consider one parent only (either mother or father) there's a very good case for using the fourth for that parent. The Hellenistic assignments did not put the mother in the tenth or only the father in the fourth.

It is true though that Hellenistic society was patriarchal and they rarely considered the mother on her own, unless she was very important, such as a queen (in which case she got the third by virtue of her royal rank).

Click to expand...

I'm going to have to remember this when I start charting. Also, thank you for reminding me that it's "parents" attributed to the 4th House. I can see how when one is charting, the various planets falling in certain houses are variables that will change the flavor of a house to more feminine or masculine. I appreciate all the information you've provided here, Minderwiz. It's definitely reminded me that this is not all black and white.

I'm rather taken with the idea that the 4th House encompasses both parents. One of the modern justifications that I've read for placing the mother there is that it represents the nurturing parent who readies one for emergence into the larger world. But this is really the role of both parents together (except in single-parent households, of course), within the focal milieu of the home. The 10th House seems to be much too late in the developmental cycle - and much too exposed - for this kind of formative influence to occur as a parental prerogative in any meaningful way, especially since the native has very likely experienced transformational exposure to a broader range of human relationships by that point in time.

I'm a bit late, but I thought I'd add my bit.

Ancient astrologers all attribute both parents to the 4th.

In the Middle Ages, the 4th became restricted to the father and the mother moved to the 10th. Abraham ibn Ezra has that, although Alberuni kept to the older idea. I think that it was a matter of language. Greek and Latin, like English, distinguish between "father" pater and "parent" parens (Lat.) or goneus (Gk); in Arabic, however, walid means both father and parent. If the fourth house is thus the "house of fathers", it seemed natural to look for a "house of mother" and to find it in the seventh house (wife) from the fourth (father). But there is some logic in this, for the tenth is the house of authority and it is the mother who represents the first authority figure in our life. This interpretation lasted in Europe down to the 19th century.

The reversal (mother = 4, father = 10) started in the late 19th century. I presume it was based on the simplistic equation of home (fourth) to the mother, and work (tenth) to the father.