Composite Pluto in the seventh house can have two quite opposite effects, and Robert Hand says so in his opening sentence rather than leading with either one.
The first is that the two people work very hard to create a viable relationship, making whatever changes in themselves are needed to make it work. He adds a detail that carries the reading. At the same time both are aware this is a team effort, and neither takes on an unfair share of the burden.
What This Placement Describes
Pluto in a composite chart is death and regeneration, the energy that puts a relationship through heavy change so a way of being that has outlived its purpose can give way to something else. Because that force is so great, Hand says it is often experienced purely as power, and in a relationship most often as power conflict between the two people. The house it occupies is where that conflict is likeliest and where the transformation runs deepest.
The composite seventh house, like the first, marks a relationship in which the two are genuinely trying to function as a unit. Hand says a strong and well aspected seventh is a good sign that any partnership, including marriage, can survive, and that in such a relationship the two are likely to think of themselves as one, as we and us. It is not simply enjoying each other's company, which belongs to the fifth. It is complementing each other and making a strong whole. He also keeps the older meaning in place. The seventh is the house of open enemies, so a seventh house relationship that is not well aspected is still an intimate encounter, but the two may be competitors.
How It Tends To Play Out
Hand attaches a condition to the good outcome. The two recognise that the relationship is having a great impact on both of them, and they experience it as a way of gaining a new, regenerated life. He says this can be expected where the relationship is otherwise quite good, which makes the rest of the chart part of the reading rather than an afterthought.
Where there is a great deal of stress, a quite different effect emerges. Each side continually tries to dominate the other, which is to say a power struggle. Hand follows the three outcomes through rather than stopping at the label. If one side wins, the other feels extremely stifled, which probably leads to further trouble. The one who loses may accept it and stay, disgruntled and grudging, taking every opportunity to make the other's life miserable. Or they may simply disappear rather than risk a losing confrontation. If neither wins, the battle simply goes on.
Because a composite chart cannot say which person is which, none of these positions can be assigned to a partner. They are shapes the relationship can take.
His conclusion is the practical part, and it is moderate. Most couples experience a mixture of good and bad effects from a seventh house Pluto. To keep the relationship going, keep working together for growth and development, and try to lower the pressure.
The Opposite House
The paired house rule comes out of the mechanics of the composite. Any pair of planets has two midpoints, the nearer is used, and the farther keeps some effect that grows as the two natal positions approach opposition. So a seventh house Pluto should also be read through the first, and where the two natal Plutos are near opposition, reading both is essential.
The composite first house is the persona of the relationship, the impression it makes and how far the two are seen as a unit. Hand's Pluto in the first is a relationship that intends to make changes in the world around it and provokes antagonism when its energy runs too strong. Read as an axis, the seventh is the force at work between the two and the first is the force the pair aim outward, and pressure at one end tends to show up at the other.
Hand gives no threshold for when the second reading takes over and no method for blending them. Both stand.
Where It Gets Difficult
The difficulty is that the same intensity produces both outcomes. Two people remaking themselves for a relationship and two people trying to remake each other are drawing on one energy, and the difference is whether the effort is shared evenly.
The struggle version is difficult mainly because it has no natural end. Hand walks through winning, losing and stalemate and none of them resolves anything. That is why his advice is about pressure rather than about victory.
He does not present this as a doomed placement. His stated expectation is a mixture, and the good half is a relationship that regenerates both people. The house sets the issue. Whether the energy is experienced as difficult or easy is described by the aspects to Pluto, which Hand treats as a separate question.
Recommended Reading
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- Robert Hand, Planets in Composite: Analyzing Human Relationships (1975), chapter fourteen.
- Robert Hand, Planets in Composite: Analyzing Human Relationships (1975), chapter four, on the composite seventh house and the paired house rule.
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Next: Composite Chart Placements and How to Read a Composite Chart.