The best time to propose: electing an engagement

Marriage proposal astrology: electing the moment you ask

The best time to propose, by astrology, is not a date on a list but a window chosen for the place you will ask and the dates you can manage. Electional astrology, al-ikhtiyārāt, “the choices”, picks the moment a matter begins, and the asking is a beginning of its own. Ask instead for the best time to get engaged, or an auspicious day to propose, and the answer is the same: a search of the weeks ahead for the hour whose sky suits an engagement.

Canopy keeps the proposal apart from the wedding. Its guide to the Events purposes puts it plainly: “Time the proposal. The wedding is a later beginning and has its own purpose.” Proposals & Engagements, al-Khiṭbah, takes Mercury and Venus as its significators where the wedding takes Venus and the Moon. An election improves the conditions of a beginning; it does not decide the answer, and in Canopy’s words a score “is not the chance of a good outcome.”

What makes an auspicious day to propose: Mercury, Venus and four houses

Canopy weighs two planets for a proposal: Venus, the natural significator of love and marriage, and Mercury, the planet of speech and agreements, since a proposal is a question put into words. A significator in its own sign or its exaltation is strong for the matter, in its detriment or fall weak, and burned by the Sun it counts against the window; Why this time? shows rows such as “Significator Venus (al-Zuhrah) in domicile — strong for the matter”. The two pull apart in Virgo, Mercury’s sign and Venus’s fall, and in Pisces, Venus’s exaltation and Mercury’s fall.

The search looks to four houses: the first, for the one who asks; the seventh, for the one who is asked; the third, which House Ruler Analysis describes as “Travel, siblings, and messages”; and the eleventh, “Friends, allies, and aspirations”. Because the seventh is the matter’s own house, a proposal is read as a matter between two parties. A stronger lord of the Ascendant lifts the window, with the line “the self prevails in this bilateral matter”; a stronger lord of the seventh lowers it, with “the other party holds the stronger hand”, and holds it back from the top of the scale. A Moon applying to Mercury counts for the window, the closer the better.

The Moon for a proposal: moveable, never fixed

The proposal’s sharpest rule is the Moon’s sign. A Moon in a moveable sign, Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn, counts in a window’s favor. A Moon in a fixed sign, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius, sets the window aside. The mutable signs neither help nor refuse. The rule is drawn from Sahl ibn Bishr, and it reverses the wedding, which wants the Moon in Taurus, Leo or Aquarius. The fixed signs hold a matter where it stands and the moveable signs set it going: a wedding is meant to hold, a proposal to lead somewhere.

Since the Moon spends a little over two days in each sign, the rule closes the proposal search for about a third of every month. She is refused, too, in the eighth or twelfth whole-sign house of the chosen moment, a rule also drawn from Sahl, so even on a day when her sign suits, some hours are out.

The faults that set a proposal window aside

Besides the fixed Moon, Canopy’s Proposals & Engagements search sets a window aside for:

• Mercury or Venus retrograde, a rule drawn from Sahl and the Picatrix;
• Mars anywhere in the first or seventh whole-sign house, read as quarrels and separation;
• the Moon in the eighth or twelfth house;
• Algol or another malefic star whose degree is on the Ascendant, the Midheaven or, since a proposal looks to the seventh house, the Descendant.

The Sun in the seventh only counts against a window, shown as “Sun (al-Shams) in the 7th house — separation”, and Spica on an angle counts for it. Any named search also refuses the Moon combust, void of course, in the burnt path from 19° Libra to 15° Scorpio or joined to the South Node, Mars or Saturn within 3° of the Ascendant, and a combust lord of the Ascendant; the electional astrology guide explains them. A refused window simply does not appear in the list.

Auspicious mansions for a marriage proposal

The Moon’s lunar mansion adds its own weight. The proposal search favors three of the twenty-eight and counts seven heavily against it. These are scores, not refusals, and they are this purpose’s own lists: several of the low ones are Saʿd, fortunate, in the mansions’ general reading.

Only al-Buṭayn lies in a moveable sign, so a Moon in mid-Aries gathers both favors. Al-Dhirāʿ and al-Simāk fill the last thirteen degrees of Gemini and of Virgo, signs that neither help nor refuse. Three moveable signs each hold a low mansion: al-Ṭarf in mid-Cancer, al-Ghafr in early Libra and Saʿd al-Dhābiḥ in early Capricorn. With the burnt path beginning at 19° Libra, a Libra Moon is clear of both only between about 13° and 19°. Each mansion’s general reading is on what each mansion favors.

The best time to get engaged: the hour, not the weekday

Among the windows that pass, the planetary hour counts. The hours of Mercury, Venus, the Moon and Jupiter count in a proposal window’s favor, those of Saturn and Mars against it, and an hour whose lord is retrograde or combust takes something back. The search scores the hour, not the weekday: each planet returns every seventh hour, on every day, as the guide to the hour of Venus sets out. The hours and the rising sign are worked out for a place, so one date can hold a strong window at one hour and none at the next. Set the Location card to where you will ask.

Mercury retrograde and the proposal

The modern habit of avoiding Mercury retrograde finds real support here. Mercury is a significator of the proposal, so while he is retrograde, about three weeks at a time and three times in most years, the search finds no window at all. Venus does the same for the forty days or so of her retrograde, about every nineteen months. If your whole range falls inside one, the results read “No window favors your chart in this stretch”; widen the range past the station and the windows return. A combust Mercury counts against a window and rules it out only when he also rules the rising sign.

How to find the best time to propose in Canopy

In the app, open Elections, choose Events, and under “What are you electing for?” pick Proposals & Engagements, the first entry under Marriage. Set From and To: the range opens on the next three months and runs to six at most. Check the Location card, then tap Find Best Moments.

The results are listed for one, three or six months, by Soonest or Best Quality, and only windows rated Good or Excellent appear. Each card gives the time, a quality percentage, the Ascendant, the Midheaven and the ruler of the hour, a few of the factors in its favor and, once your birth data is entered, a line on your chart. Open a window for Why this time?, which lists the factors that raised or lowered it, and for House Ruler Analysis, which judges the lords of the first, seventh, third and eleventh houses.

Your chart and the proposal

Windows are ranked by the sky of the moment alone. Once your birth data is entered, your nativity adds a bounded adjustment, capped at ten points either way, under Relationship to Your Natal. An election Ascendant rising in your natal seventh-house sign counts in a proposal window’s favor unless your natal Mars or Saturn is there; Venus aspecting the lord of your natal seventh counts too, as it does for any purpose. Canopy reads one nativity, yours: it does not compare your chart with your partner’s, and it does not predict the answer. For love in the nativity, see the Lots of Eros and Marriage.

Questions