On Wife and Children (Lun Qi Zi)

Reading the Household

This chapter turns to the family, and the method is the one already used for everything else: palace first, star second, and the month's likes and dislikes deciding what either means. A wife seated on wealth or officer is normally honoured, yet in a seal or wounding structure the same seat turns against her; seated on wounding or blade she is normally ill-used, yet in a wealth or killings structure she becomes a helpmate. Children are read from the hour branch first, by the yang birth-stages of the child star, and then by the hour stem — and Shen insists the older officer-and-killings scheme not be mixed in.