← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 80/235
Equal houses
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What it is
In equal houses, every house is exactly 30 degrees of the zodiac, and the count starts from the exact degree of the Ascendant. If the Ascendant is 12° Gemini, the second house begins at 12° Cancer, the third at 12° Leo, and so on: each cusp sits at the same degree of the next sign. The Descendant, opposite the Ascendant, is always the cusp of the seventh house.
It keeps the measured Ascendant that whole sign houses give up, without the uneven house sizes of the quadrant systems.
How it differs
- The Ascendant is the first cusp exactly, and every house is the same size, so nothing stretches or shrinks. No sign is ever wholly swallowed inside a house (an intercepted sign), and no sign ever holds two cusps.
- The Midheaven is not the tenth cusp. The tenth cusp is simply 270 degrees on from the Ascendant, and the true Midheaven — the degree culminating overhead — falls wherever the sky puts it, usually in the ninth, tenth or eleventh house. The same goes for the Imum Coeli. Astrologers who use equal houses read the Midheaven as a point in its own right, with its meanings of vocation and public standing, rather than as a house boundary.
- It works at any latitude. Since the houses are measured along the zodiac from one point, they never distort or fail far north or south, which makes equal houses a common recommendation for high-latitude births.
Michael Meyer put its appeal simply: because every house is measured from the Ascendant, the whole chart carries the Ascendant's significance.
In the tradition
Equal division from the rising degree is very old. Hellenistic astrologers sometimes measured places in 30-degree spans from the exact degree of the Ascendant alongside the sign-based count, and Indian astrology has long used equal bhavas measured from the rising degree in some of its methods. Some readers also see a form of it in Ptolemy, though what he intended is debated.
In the twentieth century it became closely associated with British astrology: Margaret Hone's teaching text and the Faculty of Astrological Studies made it the house system many British astrologers learned first, and it remains a common choice for those who find unequal houses hard to trust.
A few variants exist. Vehlow equal houses shift every cusp back 15 degrees so the Ascendant sits in the middle of the first house; another variant counts the equal houses from the Midheaven instead, making it the tenth cusp and letting the Ascendant float. Viastaro offers only the standard form.
How it is read
House meanings are the same as in any system. The practical difference is near the angles: a planet close to the Midheaven may be read in the ninth or eleventh house while still being treated as prominent by its closeness to that angle. Because cusps are evenly spaced, planets near a cusp are also more likely to change house than in whole sign, so a reliable birth time matters as it does in the quadrant systems.
In a reading here
Equal is one of the seven house systems Viastaro offers. Charts use Placidus unless another system is chosen, as a default for the account and per person in the reading settings.