Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace: Who You Fall For, and Where You Get Stuck

With Tan Lang in your Spouse Palace, you are drawn to charming, multi-talented people who know how to have fun. Your partner is usually sociable with many interests, and life with them is colourful.

Your pattern in love

Tan Lang is the main romance star, and in the Spouse Palace love is passionate and playful, and it needs novelty. Classical texts often say Tan Lang here brings “a bumpy love life”; the modern reading is that the relationship needs ongoing care, and trying new things together keeps boredom from pulling you apart.

You and your partner: the Life and Spouse Palaces

When Tan Lang is in your Spouse Palace, the Life Palace always holds Tian Xiang. You value rules and image and are good at mediating, while your partner is passionate, changeable and playful; they show you the fun in life, and you help keep their pace steady.

This is built into the chart: counting two palaces forward from Tan Lang always lands on Tian Xiang, and the Life Palace always sits two palaces forward from the Spouse Palace, so anyone with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace has Tian Xiang in the Life Palace (either alone or together with Wu Qu, Zi Wei and Lian Zhen). Further reading: Tian Xiang in the Life Palace.

Bright and fallen positions

When Tan Lang is bright, your partner is multi-talented and well liked, and your life together is rich and fun. When it is fallen, your partner has strong appetites and less staying power, and the relationship can swing with outside temptation or with the novelty wearing off. Brightness by branch, from the table of the Complete Book this site uses: Exalted: Chou, Chen, Wei, Xu; Strong: Zi, Wu; Fair: Mao, You; Neutral: Yin, Shen; Fallen: Si, Hai.

The Spouse Palace's four-way set is the Career Palace (opposite), the Travel Palace and the Mind Palace: love and work pull on each other, and both are tied to how you come across in the world and how content you feel inside. The table shows the major stars of these palaces, and of your Life Palace, for each of the twelve branches Tan Lang can occupy in the Spouse Palace.

"Empty palace" means the palace has none of the fourteen major stars; in that case you read it through the stars of the opposite palace.

The six combinations

Tan Lang alone, facing Zi Wei (Zi or Wu)

Zi: Tan Lang strong; Wu: Tan Lang strong. Opposite (Career): Zi Wei; Life: Wu Qu and Tian Xiang. About 16.8% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is passionate, talented and sociable. With Zi Wei opposite in the Career Palace, your career centres on status and leadership. The classical warning about “drifting romance” mostly applies when malefic stars are present; without them, this is a very charming partner.

Wu Qu with Tan Lang (Chou or Wei)

Chou: Tan Lang exalted, Wu Qu exalted; Wei: Tan Lang exalted, Wu Qu exalted. Opposite (Career): empty palace; Life: Tian Xiang. About 17.3% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is ambitious, sociable and good at making money, and the relationship is lively and practical. The classical saying that Wu Qu with Tan Lang “does not flourish in youth,” read in the Spouse Palace, usually means the relationship or your partner’s career settles only after midlife. Further reading: Wu Qu in the Spouse Palace.

Tan Lang alone, facing Lian Zhen (Yin or Shen)

Yin: Tan Lang neutral; Shen: Tan Lang neutral. Opposite (Career): Lian Zhen; Life: Zi Wei and Tian Xiang. About 16.3% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is sociable with many interests. With Lian Zhen opposite in the Career Palace, your work calls for tact and principle. With two romance stars facing each other, love runs hot and also needs more commitment.

Zi Wei with Tan Lang (Mao or You)

Mao: Tan Lang fair, Zi Wei strong; You: Tan Lang fair, Zi Wei strong. Opposite (Career): empty palace; Life: Tian Xiang. About 16.2% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is charming, knows how to live and is extremely popular, and love is lively and playful. The classical warning about “romance overpowering the ruler,” read in the Spouse Palace, asks you to keep an eye on your partner’s social circle and temptations; trust has to be built by both of you. Further reading: Zi Wei in the Spouse Palace.

Tan Lang alone, facing Wu Qu (Chen or Xu)

Chen: Tan Lang exalted; Xu: Tan Lang exalted. Opposite (Career): Wu Qu; Life: Lian Zhen and Tian Xiang. About 17.3% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner is ambitious and knows how to live well. With Wu Qu opposite in the Career Palace, your work is practical and money-focused; one of you enjoys life while the other works hard for it.

Lian Zhen with Tan Lang (Si or Hai)

Si: Tan Lang fallen, Lian Zhen fallen; Hai: Tan Lang fallen, Lian Zhen fallen. Opposite (Career): empty palace; Life: Tian Xiang. About 16.1% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace fall into this group.

Your partner has strong charisma and intense feelings and desires, and the relationship is exciting but up and down. Both stars are fallen in Si and Hai and the classical verdict is cautious; the modern reading is that you need clear boundaries and a high level of trust. Further reading: Lian Zhen in the Spouse Palace.

Birth-year transformations in the Spouse Palace

• Tan Lang with Hua Lu (born in a Wu year): For people born in a Wu year, Tan Lang with Hua Lu sits in the Spouse Palace: your partner is popular and knows how to live well, and love runs warm and sweet. In our sample, about 8.5% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace carry the birth-year Hua Lu.
• Tan Lang with Hua Quan (born in a Ji year): For people born in a Ji year, Tan Lang with Hua Quan sits in the Spouse Palace: your partner is ambitious and likes to lead, and the relationship moves fast. In our sample, about 7.6% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace carry the birth-year Hua Quan.
• Tan Lang with Hua Ji (born in a Gui year): For people born in a Gui year, Tan Lang with Hua Ji sits in the Spouse Palace: you care a great deal about your partner’s loyalty and attention and can feel uneasy about their social life; trust has to be built over the long run. In our sample, about 10.4% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace carry the birth-year Hua Ji.

A man's chart and a woman's chart

In a man's chart: Classical texts say that for a man, Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace means a wife who is “striking and talented.” The modern reading: your partner is charming, gifted and socially skilled; give them room to socialise, and also invest in time for the two of you.

In a woman's chart: Classical texts say that for a woman, Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace means a husband who is “a romantic with a roving eye.” The modern reading: you admire charming partners who know how to enjoy life; the relationship needs novelty, and it also needs commitment from both sides.

The classical texts read the Spouse Palace as the wife in a man's chart and the husband in a woman's chart, reflecting the traditional view of marriage they were written in. Relationships today take many forms, so this site reads the Spouse Palace as your pattern in close relationships, whatever your gender and whatever shape the relationship takes.

Getting along

Go and do things together that neither of you has done before. Tan Lang love lives on novelty, and your Tian Xiang side can turn that novelty into habit.

About 41.3% of charts with Tan Lang in the Spouse Palace also have at least one of the six Sha stars in that palace, about the same as the 42.0% across all charts. Malefic stars in the Spouse Palace usually show up as high expectations of love and a need to work things through; they do not mean the relationship is bad.

What our sample shows

How we counted: this site’s engine cast one Zi Wei chart for every day from 1960 to 2005 (birth hour drawn by a fixed-seed random sample), 16,802 charts in all. These figures describe how chart structures are distributed; they do not measure anyone’s love life.

Other major stars in the Spouse Palace