Mars in the seventh house of a composite chart can indicate that the two people have a great sense of common purpose. Robert Hand gives that first and then gives the alternative, because the placement genuinely holds both: it can also mean a total conflict of purpose.
Either the two will feel that their energies are infinitely better expressed together rather than apart, or they will be in an extreme state of conflict with each other. Which way it goes depends largely on finding a way to express themselves together, on discovering something they can do together.
What This Placement Describes
The basic principle of Mars, in Hand's account, is the ego drive, the energy by which a person sustains a sense of being an individual toward the world and toward others. In a composite chart it signifies the ability to create an environment where both people can express themselves fully without threatening each other and provoking destructive conflicts. Some conflict is inevitable and should not be suppressed. The requirement is that the ego drives be basically compatible.
The composite seventh house, like the first, is a sign of a relationship in which the two are truly trying to function as a unit. Hand calls it the house of intimate one to one encounter, and he notes that it is also the house of open enemies. A clearly seventh house relationship that is not well aspected will still be an intimate encounter, with the two as enemies or at least competitors. He also says that in a strong seventh house relationship the two are likely to think of themselves as we and us, and that what matters is less that they enjoy each other than that they complement each other and make a strong whole.
Mars in that house means the ego energies within the relationship are very strong. It is angular, which increases the effect.
How It Tends To Play Out
Hand names a third possibility that is more common than either pure outcome. It is also possible for the two effects to occur together, creating a love hate relationship in which feelings toward each other oscillate rapidly between loving and hating.
He also gives the placement a real advantage, and it is one that comes from the seventh house itself. Even at the very worst, the two will know exactly where they stand with each other.
The condition Hand attaches is a structural one. This position requires that the two be on an equal footing. His instruction is to give each other plenty of room to find fulfilment within the relationship and also to find something they can work for together, and he says that with that in place the position of Mars will be a help rather than a hindrance.
The Opposite House
Hand's paired house rule comes from the mechanics of the composite. Two midpoints exist for any pair of planets, and although the nearer one is used, the farther one keeps some effect, an effect that increases as the two natal positions approach opposition. So a seventh house Mars should also be read through the first, and where the two natal Mars positions are near opposition, reading both is essential rather than optional.
The first house is the persona of a relationship, the impression it makes and the extent to which the two are seen as a unit in their own right. Hand's reading of Mars there says the relationship demands activity, that the two should find something physically active to do together, and that where they find a common purpose the energy focuses on that instead of on each other. Read as an axis, the seventh is the energy between the two and the first is the same energy as it faces the world. Both houses are angular. Both, in Hand's reading, are solved the same way, by a shared object.
Hand gives no threshold for when the second reading takes over and no method for blending the two. Both stand.
Where It Gets Difficult
Hand identifies one dynamic that will not survive here, and he names it directly. The martyr game that characterises so many relationships, with one person always conceding grudgingly to the other, will not work with this placement. In this situation it is not always easy for either of them to accede to the other's wishes.
The larger risk is the one built into the seventh house itself, which is that intimacy and enmity run through the same channel. Conflict here is not distant or diffuse. It is one to one, and it is sustained by the same energy that would otherwise be common purpose.
The house sets the issue. Whether the energy between the two runs as partnership or as friction is described by the aspects to Mars, which is a separate question.
Recommended Reading
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- Robert Hand, Planets in Composite: Analyzing Human Relationships (1975), chapter nine.
- Robert Hand, Planets in Composite: Analyzing Human Relationships (1975), chapter four, on the composite seventh house and the paired house rule.
Continue Learning
Next: Composite Chart Placements and How to Read a Composite Chart.