Zodiac Marriage Compatibility

Western astrology has no separate marriage rating: this site reads a long-term pair with the same sun-sign rating as love, where signs of the same element score highest, and adds modality as the tradition's long-run lens.

To rate your own two signs, use the zodiac compatibility calculator.

What is zodiac marriage compatibility?

Zodiac marriage compatibility is the tradition's reading of two sun signs as a long-term partnership. Like the rest of Western zodiac element matching, it starts from the four elements. Two signs of the same element are read as the easiest pair, then fire with air and earth with water, the elements the tradition calls complementary. Astrology for a marriage match, sun sign compatibility for marriage and horoscope compatibility for marriage all name this same reading in the United States. In India, horoscope matching usually means a different, Vedic system, covered at the end of this page.

None of it is a test of a marriage. The best-known controlled test of astrology, published in Nature in 1985, found that astrologers could not match birth charts to personality profiles better than chance.

Which zodiac signs make the best marriages?

In the tradition's terms, the signs that marry best are the ones it rates highest for love. That means two signs of one element, a trine apart, and after them the sextile pairs, fire with air or earth with water. For each sign, the table below names the partners the rating puts highest and shows the modality each one brings. A Taurus, for example, is rated highest with Virgo and Capricorn, both earth signs like itself.

Does astrology rate marriage differently from love?

No, not on this site. A sign pair has one rating, and the table above uses it. What the tradition adds for the long run is a way of reading that rating, which is modality: how each sign starts things, holds them or changes course. No pair on this page is called better for marriage than for love, and a pair rated low for love is not rescued by being read for marriage.

Why does modality matter in a long marriage?

• Cardinal (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn): read as action and initiative, the signs that start things.
• Fixed (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius): read as willpower and resistance to change, the signs that keep things going.
• Mutable (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces): read as adaptability and flexibility, the signs that change course.

Two different signs of the same modality always meet at a square or an opposition, the two aspects the tradition reads as tension. That is why the rating adds a point when two signs differ in modality. It is also why the tradition treats modality as its long-run lens: two starters, two holders or two adapters are read as pushing in the same direction at once.

Is there a zodiac compatibility calculator for marriage?

Yes, the same one. The zodiac compatibility calculator gives one rating for any two signs, and love, friendship and marriage share it on this site. A zodiac marriage compatibility test that offers a separate marriage score is using rules of its own, and a fair one shows you what they are. For the pair behind your own two signs, each pair page carries a marriage section that reads its rating for the long run.

To read a result for marriage, take it in two steps. First the rating itself, which comes from the angle between the two signs and their elements. Then the modalities: whether you are two starters, two holders or two adapters, or a mix. The tradition reads a mix as easier to live with over the years, and the rating already counts it, so the second step explains the result rather than changing it.

Which marriage compatibility check should I use?

It depends on what you have and what you want to know.

• Two sun signs: this page and the zodiac calculator above.
• Two birth charts in the Vedic tradition: kundli matching, the Vedic system many families in India use before a wedding, which scores a match out of 36 points across eight tests.
• Two birth charts in Western astrology: the birth chart calculator, listed in the footer, which compares the planets in both charts rather than two sun signs.
• How you two actually live: a questionnaire asks about the things a sign cannot see, such as money, family and plans, and the guide to which marriage check to use sets out the options side by side.