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Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos

Chapter 53: CHAPTER VII MALE OR FEMALE
By Ptolemy
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About This Book

A systematic astrological treatise that explains how the sun, moon, planets and fixed stars are understood to affect weather, geography and human affairs. It lays out technical vocabulary and procedures—signs, houses, aspects, triplicities, exaltations and terms—then applies them across four parts: foundational principles and methods; climatic and regional forecasts including eclipses and atmospheric phenomena; rules for casting nativities and interpreting birth, temperament, health and longevity; and worked examples with tables and commentary. The work emphasizes a disciplined, observational approach to linking astronomical positions with types and timings of terrestrial events.

CHAPTER VII
MALE OR FEMALE

After the indications which regard brothers and sisters have been investigated by the foregoing rules, consonant with nature and reason, the actual native, or the person to whom the scheme of nativity is specially appropriated, demands attention; and the first and most obvious inquiry is whether the said native will be male or female.

The consideration of this question rests not on a single basis, nor can it be pursued in one sole direction only: it depends, on the contrary, upon the several situations of the two luminaries and the ascendant, and upon such planets as possess any prerogatives in the places of those situations; and all these circumstances should be specially observed at the time of conception, and, in a general manner also, at that of birth.

Observation of the said three places, and of the mode in which the planets ruling them may be constituted, is wholly indispensable: it must be seen whether all, or most of them, may be constituted masculinely or femininely; and prediction must, of course, be regulated in conformity with their disposition, so observed; as tending to produce a male or female birth.

The masculine or feminine nature of the stars is to be distinguished in the manner already pointed out in the commencement of this treatise.[131] For instance, by the nature of the signs in which they are situated, by their relative position to each other, and also by their position towards the earth; as when in the east, they are masculinely disposed, and, when in the west, femininely. Their relative position to the Sun also affords guidance in distinguishing them; since, if they should be matutine, they are considered to signify the male gender; and if vespertine, the female. Thus, from the sex chiefly prevalent, as observed by these rules, that of the native may be rationally inferred.