Flavio said:
I've been looking around everywhere and just can't find the answer to this question: which House rules the "ex-wife/ex-husband"?
I've seen indications of which planets "must" appear for divorce, for marriage etc. but not a clue to the "exes" House, please notice this is only for curiosity with very few practical uses so far.
Thank you very much for your help.
The short answer is that it is the Seventh but clearly you want to know why and when and how to use it.
Firstly a little background - Houses play many roles, and often these seem not to be related, but once you get to realise the principles you find that seemingly disparate things have a common theme. Which of their many meanings is in 'force' at any one time depends entirely upon context. So for example the tenth House 'rules' your Mother and your employer but this does not mean that your mother is always your employer, or indeed ever your employer, or that the sixth House which rules small animals and your servants, means that your plumber is a hedgehog.
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If you are concerned about your pet hedgehog, it gets the sixth. If your question is about your plumber, he/she also gets the sixth but you are quite clear which of the two you are concerned about at any one time.
Now lets look at your family and how we might use the chart:
Your family as a whole, including you plus your cousin, sisters and aunts, etc, is shown by the fourth house. Family here includes the wives/husbands of your blood relatives.
If we want to separate out relatives, then we have a number of clear options - your father is head of the family (by presumption) so he gets the fourth house if we are talking solely about him. His wife (usually but not necessarily) gets the opposite house, the tehth. Hence your mother is shown by the tenth. If he has remarried because of divorce or the death of your mother, his current wife (your step mother) still gets the tenth.
Your siblings get the third house - if you have only a brother he would be third house, if he is married or in a relationship his partner would be Ninth house. If you have more than one sibling, then you can separate them out using third house relationships (sibling of a sibling) - so if you have two siblings, the second one gets the fifth House. Notice you already have the first House so you don't come into this separation.
Your children as a whole get the fifth, if you have more than one child and need to distinguish between them, astrologically, then the eldest gets the fifth, and the next eldest gets the seventh (as the sibling of your eldest child) and so on using the third house relationship. By extension the partner of your eldest child would get the eleventh house, the partner of your second child would get the first house.
Now note that last one - how can they have the first house, which after all is you! The answer is that this is only the case if you are specifically interested in them, in say a horary question. It really doesn't work well, if at all in natal Astrology.
So, let's come to that ex-wife/husband. I'll use 'you' here to cover everyone and not Flavio personally, that is the hypothetical 'you'. Obviously when you were married she/he is given the seventh, when you are looking specifically at matters relating to them as your partner. A divorce or split, ends the legal relationship. So what is your relationship to them now?
There are several possible relationships that you might have with them it's possible that you split on friendly terms and remain good friends - in this case we might think of using the Eleventh House as the appropriate one but you have to think of them solely as a friend and not ex partner.
If you split is acrimonious, you might see them as your enemy. In that case they get the seventh House, which is also the House of Open Enemies. You might split on reasonably amicable terms but go your own separate ways. In that case your ex still gets the Seventh, which covers everyone else in the world (as individuals) unless they have a relationship to you that is covered by one of the other Houses (friend, employer, servant, or re-marry into your family and become, say, your brother's partner).
So unless they become a good friend, become/remain your employer or servant, join your family as an in-law,they are Seventh House.
A word of caution
The only time you would really use this is in a horary question. For example 'Will my ex-wife get the house?', or 'Will my ex-wife move to another state?'
If you are looking solely in terms of natal Astrology, your chart will give you an indication of whether there will be more than one partner and from context the Seventh is always your present partner, or your hoped for or intended partner.
