Descendant sign: what you look for in others

Your Descendant is the point of the zodiac that was setting on the western horizon at the moment you were born. It lies exactly opposite your Rising sign and marks the start of the seventh house, the house of partnership. Astrologers read its sign as the qualities you look for in other people, above all in close one-to-one relationships.

What the Descendant is

At every moment, one degree of the zodiac is rising in the east and the degree exactly opposite is setting in the west. The rising degree is your Rising point, and its sign is your Rising sign (also called the Ascendant). The setting degree is your Descendant.

The two are always 180 degrees apart. That makes the Descendant easy to find: it is the sign opposite your Rising sign, at the same degree. If your Rising point is at 12 degrees of Aries, your Descendant is at 12 degrees of Libra.

Like the Rising sign, the Descendant depends on the time and place of your birth. It changes sign about every two hours and moves about one degree every four minutes. How to find your Rising sign

The Descendant is one of the four angles of a chart, together with the Rising point, the Midheaven at the top and the IC at the bottom. Astrologers treat the angles as the most personal points of a chart, because they move so fast.

What the Descendant is read as in relationships

The Rising sign describes how you approach the world: your manner, your first move, the part of you that says "I". The Descendant, on the other side of the chart, stands for "you": the other person, face to face.

Astrologers read the Descendant sign in three ways.

• What you look for. The qualities that attract you in a partner, a close friend or a business partner.
• What you hand over. Qualities you see more easily in others than in yourself. You admire them in a partner, and later the same qualities can annoy you.
• What you grow into. Over the years, close relationships tend to teach you the style of your Descendant sign. Astrologers read it as a part of you that develops through other people.

The Rising sign is how you walk into a room. The Descendant is who you look for once you are inside.

The twelve Rising and Descendant pairs

There are six pairs of opposite signs, so twelve combinations. Find your Rising sign in the left column.

Opposite signs are not strangers. Each pair shares the same mode, the way a sign acts (starting, holding or adapting), and their elements go together: fire is always opposite air, earth is always opposite water. Aries and Libra both like to set things in motion, one alone and the other together with someone. That is why astrologers describe each pair as two ends of one theme, and why the Descendant can feel foreign and familiar at once.

Read each line as a tendency, not a rule. And read it as a list of qualities, not of Sun signs. A Descendant in Scorpio does not point to a partner whose Sun sign is Scorpio.

The ruler of the Descendant and planets in the seventh house

The sign is the first layer. Two more things refine the picture.

The ruler of the Descendant sign. Every sign is assigned a planet, its ruler. Venus rules Libra and Taurus, Mars rules Aries, Saturn rules Capricorn. The sign and house of that planet in your chart add detail. With a Descendant in Libra and Venus in the ninth house (travel, study, beliefs), astrologers would read a pull toward partners who widen your horizon.

Planets in the seventh house. A planet that stands in the seventh house, above all one close to the Descendant itself, colors what you look for. Jupiter there is read as a wish for generosity and growth in partnership, Saturn as a wish for commitment and seriousness. An empty seventh house is common and no cause for concern: the Descendant sign and its ruler are then read on their own.

When two charts are compared, astrologers also check whether one person's Sun, Moon or Venus falls on the other person's Descendant. This is read as a strong sense of meeting your counterpart. The method is called synastry.

What the Descendant does not tell you

• Not who to choose. It describes qualities, and those can reach you through a partner's Moon, Venus, Rising sign or simply their character.
• Not how a relationship will go. A chart describes tendencies. Two people decide what they make of them.
• Not the whole of how you love. Your Venus sign describes how you show affection, and your Moon sign describes what you need to feel safe. The Descendant adds what you look for in the person opposite you.

What to do with your Descendant sign

1. Find your Rising sign and take the opposite sign.
2. Read its line in the table. Ask where you have looked for these qualities in other people.
3. Then ask the more useful question: where could you live a little of this yourself?

If you want to look at one specific relationship, a Compatibility Reading compares two birth charts, yours and your partner's, and describes how they meet. It gives no score and no verdict.