Officer star meaning: does a woman with many Officer stars lack luck with husbands?

"You have a lot of Officer stars. You won't have much luck with husbands."

Hearing this, you may have answered back

"But work comes first for me..."

"The problem isn't men, it's the organisation..."

if only in your head.

That comeback may not be wrong.

Officer and Seven Killings mixed (官殺混雜) is the name for a structure in which the Direct Officer (正官) and the Indirect Officer (偏官, also called Seven Killings) appear together in a chart. It is commonly read as "a woman with Officer and Seven Killings mixed will have several men come into her life" or "her marriage will not go smoothly."

Let us look at where this reading came from, and why applying it as it is to life today tends to strain.

In the Four Pillars, the relationship between yourself (the Day Master) and every other character is divided into ten kinds. These are called the Ten Gods (十神).

Among them, the element that controls the Day Master is called the Officer star (官星). There are two: the Direct Officer (正官) and the Indirect Officer (偏官, Seven Killings).

Traditionally it was read together with office, rules, authority and responsibility. Carried over to life today, the demands of an organisation, social evaluation and the power to keep yourself in check can be read into it as well. When Lesson 1 said that Peach Blossom is put to proper use when it meets the Officer star, that too was because the Officer star is read as this power of discipline.

Reading the Officer star in a woman's chart as her husband is clearly written in the old manuals. It is in the Yuanhai Ziping (淵海子平), compiled in the Ming dynasty.

This reading also meshed well with the thinking of the society of that time. The commentary (傳) to the Mourning Garments chapter of the Yili (儀禮) set out a woman's life like this:

Women of that era also held up the household and the economy through farming and weaving, trade and the family business. But the road to office was all but closed to them, and their social position and role tended to be spoken of through their husband and his family.

For a man the Officer star was office, the state and his superiors, but in that society's eyes a woman's Officer star was tied first of all to her husband. The way Four Pillars assigned family roles and the shape of the family in that era propped each other up.

Nor was the husband the only one who kept a daughter-in-law in line in her husband's household. Her mother-in-law, her father-in-law and her husband's older sisters were there too, and the mother-in-law in particular directly ran the housework and the daughter-in-law's day.

So readings like these came naturally.

For life in that era, these were readings that made a kind of sense.

The structure of having many Officer stars is the same today. What has changed is where that force can show.

In the old reading, a woman's Officer star had practically nowhere to go but her husband and his family. Today there are many places to consider.

Now that social roles have become diverse, there is less reason than before to gather the Officer star into the single place of the husband.

For women in the past, the Officer star was mostly read as a burden. Even when many forces pressed on them, there was little room to rise by passing through that pressure.

Today, holding your ground where you are evaluated can lead to promotion, heavy responsibility can become a career, and an exam can become a qualification. The same Officer star can feel like a burden at times and become a chance to grow at others.

Of course, too much pressure wears you out. Whether that weight remains a burden or becomes a chance depends on the strength of the Day Master read together with the whole chart.

Officer and Seven Killings mixed is a structure in which the Direct Officer and the Indirect Officer appear together. Traditionally it is judged by their relative strength and position, and by whether there are characters that restrain or resolve one side (制化).

When reading this structure in a woman's chart, the old books clearly tied it to her conduct. Here is a passage from the same Yuanhai Ziping:

In a man's chart, Officer and Seven Killings mixed is often read as a story about work, such as "he has several bosses" or "he often changes organisations," but for a woman it becomes a story about romance and conduct. It is the same pattern as Peach Blossom, which we saw in Lesson 1.

Carried over to life today, it could also be thought of as a situation of wavering between different rules or standards of evaluation. But this is only one example of a reading, not a sign that it must turn out that way. Some people meet several partners; some work under several bosses. Which it is is not decided by the characters of the chart alone.

What is interesting is that the Di Tian Sui (滴天髓) already warned against applying this formula as it is. Here is the original note (原注) to the chapter on women:

Ren Tieqiao (任鐵樵) of the Qing dynasty carries this on in his commentary:

The Useful God is the force a chart needs most. What Ren Tieqiao was saying is that in judging the husband, you should not be bound to the single god of the Officer star but should look at the balance of the whole chart and its Useful God.

This is not a modern theory of equality between men and women. In the same commentary, Ren Tieqiao himself held that a woman's chastity and conduct could be judged from her chart. Still, it is worth remembering that the classics already contained a way of reading that does not nail a meaning to a single star.

The classics could not step outside their own era either. That is why, when we read them, we must also read what kind of life their words took for granted.

Don't look at the Officer star alone. Look at what sits beside it in your chart, and at how strong the Day Master is.

None of these is a formula for guessing a job; each is a clue for looking back at the place you stand.

Reading the Officer star as the husband has a long history in Four Pillars. But that reading is not the only answer. The classics themselves said not to be bound to the Officer star alone but to look at the whole chart.

Mingyeong does not change the meaning of the Ten Gods by gender. For both men and women, it reads the Officer star as "where the power that keeps you in check comes from," and looks at close relationships through the relationships across the whole chart, including the day branch.

And it shows you which paths historical figures with a similar temperament chose in their own era. How the paths of that era differ from the paths open to you now is for you to compare for yourself.