Composite Sun in the sixth house sets a relationship's core energy on service, work and obligation. Robert Hand calls it one of the more difficult positions for the Sun, because the sixth is inherently a house of inequality.
His reasoning is worth stating exactly. In most relationships there has to be some balance between taking and giving. The two contributions need not be identical, but each has to be made in equal measure for the association to work. Under a sixth-house Sun, the pattern runs the other way: one gives and the other takes. It is the house of service to others and of others' service to you.
What This Placement Describes
Hand's general account of the composite sixth house is about duty. Like the sixth in a natal chart, it refers to the duties and responsibilities the relationship has to fulfil. Every relationship has obligations and in most cases they do no harm. They become a problem only when they are the main element of the connection, leaving no room for the self-expression the fifth house governs.
When the sixth is very strong, the two people see the relationship as a duty to be met rather than something to be enjoyed. In a business relationship that is not much of a problem, since there are tasks to be done and obligations to be met. In a personal relationship, which is meant to be a voluntary and natural expression of each person, a dutiful attitude can ultimately weaken the bond. Hand allows one clean case where a strong sixth is an advantage, which is where circumstances genuinely call for work to be done, and he adds that making good use of these energies asks both people to approach even a personal relationship from a strong sense of personal duty.
Health, the other traditional sixth-house topic, he treats as having little relevance in a composite, except where the relationship is a professional one connected to health.
How It Tends To Play Out
The relationship organises itself around what has to be done. Effort, maintenance and obligation are its natural currency, and there is usually a task, explicit or unspoken, that the two are carrying together.
Hand's constructive suggestion is to make that task real. Having a common goal to work toward is the practical way to use this placement. He attaches a condition: accomplishing the objective should be the only reward sought. Other rewards may arrive, but they cannot be consciously pursued without endangering the relationship.
The Opposite House
Since the farther midpoint keeps some effect, and it grows as the two natal Suns approach opposition, a sixth-house Sun should also be read through the twelfth. Where the natal positions are near opposition, Hand regards reading both as essential.
The twelfth house is repressed thought, ideas the waking mind has chosen not to deal with, and the environmental factors that caused the repression. Read together, the axis is unusually revealing for this particular Sun, because the resentment a sixth-house relationship generates is exactly the material a twelfth-house relationship buries. The unspoken accounting of who gave what tends to go underground rather than away, and it drives behaviour neither person can explain.
Hand gives no threshold at which one house outweighs the other, and no technique for blending the readings. He asks that both be held in mind.
Where It Gets Difficult
The great danger, in his words, is that one person is likely to feel taken advantage of. He then sharpens it: it is quite likely that each is somehow using the other and being used in turn, and both will eventually resent it. The signal is a specific question surfacing, which is what am I getting out of this relationship. When that question arrives, there are serious problems.
A sixth-house relationship is one where ordinary ego drives are particularly disruptive. Hand suggests that the best approach may be to enter it in a spirit of service with as little thought for oneself as possible, and then immediately undercuts the advice, because he says doing that genuinely is extremely difficult and most people who try are deluding themselves. What is often wanted is a warm pat on the back for the selfless endeavour, and even that recognition may not arrive. He notes that both people may be doing exactly the same thing.
That candour is the point of the placement. The house sets the issue. Whether the two handle it generously or bitterly is shown by the aspects to the Sun, which is a separate question.
Recommended Reading
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- Robert Hand, Planets in Composite: Analyzing Human Relationships (1975), chapter five.
- Robert Hand, Planets in Composite: Analyzing Human Relationships (1975), chapter four, on the composite sixth house and the paired house rule.
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Next: Composite Chart Placements and How to Read a Composite Chart.