The 7th house is the portion of your birth chart that deals with all things partnership—romantic, business, or otherwise. As astrologer and author of Rise and Shine: An Astrological Guide to How You Should Up in the World, Christopher Renstrom, tells mindbodygreen, you can consider it the “spouse house,” but also the house that rules business partnerships and even open enemies.

This house is on the opposite side of your chart as your ascendent (AKA rising sign) which kicks off your first house. “The 7th house is as far away from the ascendant as it can be, so it was known as the descendant,” Renstrom says.

Further, according to the AstroTwins, the 7th house is “where we team up with others and get to know ourselves through our interactions and creating mutual give-and-take.” As they previously wrote for mindbodygreen, creating a balance of two forces is the goal of this house.

And is marriage not the ultimate way to combine and balance two forces? As Renstrom explains, marrying for love wasn’t even a concept until more recent, modern times. In the past, marriage was a contractual agreement that united two families.

“Marriages before our times were often arranged, and astrology has been around 2500 years—so the 7th house described who you were marrying because with marriage you sign a contract,” he says, adding, “You’re legally bound to one another—as opposed to a fifth house, which is love affairs and romance.”

Then, suppose you get a divorce, that too is a theme of the 7th house, because not only do you have divorce papers to sign, but your ex then becomes your public enemy. Where the 12th house deals with secret enemies, Renstrom notes, the 7th deals with your enemies in plain sight.

But more often that not, he adds, whenever you see planets in the seventh house, “chances are that’s describing your partner and not describing you.”