Yes, in natal astrology, the same sex parent is in the 4th house, while the opposite sex parent is shown in the 10th.

This is one opinion but it is not one I agree with. In natal astrology I always give the 4th house to the father and 10th to the mother. In traditional astrology, the 4th house was considered to be the house of the parents in general and the father specifically. It seems that modern astrologers began to give the mother the 4th house because of the supposed association between Cancer and the 4th house in the natural zodiac (which I don't use). I am not sure where this idea of giving the 4th house to the same sex parent came from. I can't see any sense in it.

In Lilly's times, I suppose that 99% of the querents were men, while the women were staying home and looking after the children, therefore the 4th house always represented the father.

I doubt very much that 99% of querents were men. You only have to see the example charts from Lilly to see that women made up a large part of his clientele. And if we followed this reasoning to its logical conclusion then we would have to give the 4th to the mother since it is the home. The 4th house is the house of ancestory or our roots. Because our society is patrilineal, we are generally traced from our father. Hence, the father is the 4th and the mother is the 10th (partner of our father). It is also traditionally the house of our grandparents.

Hi,

Lilly says of the fourth/tenth house, not just your own father/mother but 'fathers in general' and 'mothers' respectively.

In addition, as Sue says the modern association of First house = Aries = Mars; Second house = Taurus = Venus, etc. seems to have brought rise to a variety of associations which were never part of the tradition.

However, looking at the traditional rulerships of the houses, we start at the ascendant with Saturn, then go to the second house with Jupiter and so on with Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon. This gives us the Sun ruling 4th house, not Moon/Cancer.

Another example of this is Venus is often associated with money in modern astrology, but traditionally it was Jupiter, ruler of 2nd.

Ok, I will not argue anymore. I just asked "what if...?". Thanks for the explanations! I'll keep in mind that traditional astrology assigns the 4th house to the father, no matter what.

Btw, just in case someone might find this interesting, I found this text while surfing: The 4th and 10th house meridian axis has historically experienced some serious "difficulties." The ancient Greeks associated the 4th house with both "parents." At some point in time astrologers replaced "parents" with the Father in the 4th house and shifted Mother to the 10th house. Many modern astrologers have now placed Mother into the 4th and Father into the 10th. If you noticed, I placed the different sex parent in the 4th house and the same sex parent in 10th house. To make matters even more confusing, I'm told that Vedic astrology places Mother in the 4th house and Father in the 9th house. When I get really cornered, I simply call the 4th and 10th house meridian axis the "parental axis. ( Anthony Pe?a, astrology.about.com)

Hi,

I agree this has always been ambiguous and that the ancients prior to Lilly were not so clear as he was. It seems 10th was assigned as 7th from 4th = father's wife, which is very very odd since she gave birth to you and kept you alive whilst his significance in your arrival was very short lived in comparison!

In natal charts I just say the 4th = parents, probably the father and if there is any reason to assign 4th to mother then I will go with that quite happily.

It's only when we do horary we have to get so precise and about these niggling questions!