The 5th Lord and the 7th Lord in Love Marriage

The planetary indication of a love marriage is a connection between the 5th lord and the 7th lord: conjunction, mutual aspect, or an exchange of signs. The 5th is romance. The 7th is the spouse and the contract. When their lords touch, the affection and the marriage are one story. When they do not touch, a strong 5th can be a long romance or a creative life, and the wedding waits on a different lord.

Venus has to agree. Venus debilitated in Virgo makes agreement clumsy even if the lords touch. Venus exalted in Pisces makes the same link easier to live in. The Navamsa of both lords is the test that the birth chart's contact was not only public.

An exchange, the 5th lord sitting in the 7th and the 7th lord sitting in the 5th, is the clearest version because each house is occupied by the other's ruler. A one-way placement, 5th lord in the 7th only, still counts and is weaker than the exchange. Jupiter aspecting the contact helps, because Jupiter aspects the 5th, 7th, and 9th from itself and is the husband significator in a woman's chart. In a man's chart Venus remains the wife significator even when the 5th and 7th lords are Mars or Saturn.

The dasha that marries is the period of one of those lords, or of Venus. The link without the period is a potential.

Rahu can make a marriage unconventional, and that is a different indication from the 5th-7th link. You can have the lords exchanging with no node, a classic love marriage that the family eventually understands. You can have Rahu in the 7th with the 5th lord in the 12th, an unusual bond that never quite becomes a clean 5th-house romance.

Read the exchange or the conjunction first. Add Rahu only if it is actually on one of those lords or in the 5th or 7th.