Good manners and etiquette used to be synonymous. Being well-mannered means being socially pleasant. Etiquette is a set of codified rules for behavior. Manners are Venus matters, 2nd house values and 7th house balance. I would say they are primarily Libran but Taurus is also involved. Etiquette is more Saturn-ruled, the 10th house, public, traditional, restrictive and sometimes archaic. Modern, updated etiquette adds Jupiter, expanding the rules.
The attitudes of an individual can be observed in Venus and Saturn related placements, by aspect and by house. They can also be observed in Mars, Mercury and Moon placements as well, which relate to how you act, communicate and feel. Venus-ruled placements, in the 7th house, aspecting Venus or in Libra or Taurus, tend to the pleasing side, good manners. Saturn-ruled placements, in the 10th house, aspecting Saturn or in Capricorn lend an air of the traditional. Adding Jupiter or Uranus into the mix can increase the effect, modernize it or make it shocking. With so many variables in one individual, it’s rarely straightforward. We are complicated beings.
One interesting item of note is that Libra and Capricorn are both cardinal, action-oriented and controlling. At their heart such matters are invariably about control, control of self, control of others, control of the social environment. Examining something so seemingly frivolous as your own attitude about manners and etiquette unearths its deep roots that spread to all areas of your life. Pluto in Capricorn digs up tradition to look at the roots. Saturn in Libra opposing Jupiter in Aries can be balancing traditional social rules with modern action.
What are your own attitudes about manners and etiquette? Can you see the astrology?
I am pretty serious about good manners and etiquette. Libra rising, Venus in the 7th, Saturn in the 2nd 🙂
Oh and Cap rules my IC 🙂 P.S. Love the image! One of my favorite movies ever.
AWESOME post!!!
i have always been VERY skeptical of ‘etiquette’
always seemed to me like just another excuse for well-educated, BORED rich bastards to look down their noses at poorer people for using a perfectly good but WRONG fork, all the while decimating the planet and enslaving anyone who isn’t . . . well, the color of snow with dangly bits.
i think i’m just what you get when you mix the justice of libra, the practicality of virgo with the revolution of uranus——all filtered through the seering lava of pluto rising—-it’s gotta be fair, useful, progressive and real or it’s CRAP
i prefer good manners any day to this etiquette who-ha.
and until right now, i never actually thought about the difference.
Thank you, Satori.
hey thanks! 😀
Capricorn and lots of saturn influence: I haz it. I love etiquette. everyone’s different. I love that too.
I’m a fan of manners but haven’t a clue about formal etiquette. Nada! I’m nice to others, so I hope that makes up for it, tee hee!
Good manners and being socially polite are very important for me personally. Venus 11H semisextile Saturn 10H, Saturn conjunct MC.
I don’t know squat about formal etiquette. I went to high tea once and felt so awkward!! My Director at the time invited me, so I couldn’t turn it down. I didn’t know what to do, so I followed her example. Felt like a fraud. LOL
Very fancy high end restaurants ($$$$$$) fill me with dread. Everyone is stiff, you hear silverware clinking quietly, hushed conversations, muffled laughter, stiff backs, noses in the air. It feels too confining, ‘precious’, and cold. Strong Uranus in my chart, plus non-conformist Pluto 1H.
high tea? fancy high end restaurant? that’s where I shine! but I want to live rural, in a blue-collar neighborhood, or over a shop downtown. I’m also a seriously dress-down kind of person too. go figure.
Okay, TMI:
Places like jinjan described always make me want to have rutting, nasty, screaming sex on the table, just because I know you’re not supposed to.
Mars-Venus-Pluto in Libra, y’all; in consult, Elsa said of this placement “the lovely doily is bound to be spoiled – blood, mud and guts.” YUP. Spoil that doily, beetches! *shit-eatin’ grin*
Not that I would, but it makes things like that interesting in my head. About the worst I would actually do is gleefully walk in wearing ripped-up jeans, dirty tennies, and a metal band concert tee. 😉
All of my personal planets hit Saturn and Venus by conjunction or trine, though, so I do value manners and ettiquette. I just don’t do well with stuffy / pretentious — I want to pop the balloon, so to speak. Tradition for the sake of tradition, unexamined, puts my back up. No one seems to think we should go back to eating from trenchers with our hands, wiping our mouths on the tablecloths, and throwing the bones on the floor for our hounds, but that’s very much European tradition from one era. Feel me?
I knew you did. 😉
See Katherine Hepburn in “A Lion in Winter”:
“Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians!”
*GRIN*
@Satori – Wish I had your ease in these situations!
Manners matter! I sooo appreciate them, and me and Saturn have been rather tight these days 😉 Saturn is also conjunct Venus, 11th house. But I was never taught and would never know what to do with etiquette, Aqua moon probably would rebel against it anyway.
if anyone ever gets into a situation where they don’t feel native and it’s uncomfortable, see yourself as anthropologist! you’re exploring another culture! of course you don’t know what to do, watch and follow! it can be exciting! you don’t have to enjoy every culture’s practices but it doesn’t hurt to try them once!
hmm.. i appreciate people who are genuinely polite. actions that acknowledge everyone’s importance and make room for everyone’s differences.
unfortunately, i don’t have a lot of patience for “good manners” and “etiquette”. for some reason, i just can’t shake the “fake” from them.
my sister-in-law is a LIBRA STELLIUM and her smile is brilliant. gorgeous. perfect. but fake.
i just like real smiles. i like real behavior, and real people. not veneers.
i think that’s just right for my chart. i’ve got strong aqua/11th house and uranus. i’ve also got pluto in libra/7th opposite my jupiter/ascendant. i’m pretty un-libra.
i appreciate it as an art form, though. i like to watch it the way i like to watch ballet, or good choreography in other expressions.
I love your posts! Have a nice week!
thank you, Mia! you too!
oh.. I’ve never consider this.. What if Venus is conj saturn on the 8th H? Capricorn in Midheaven and Taurus in the 2H.
I used to be praised on my manners.
Venus in Gem, Saturn in Cancer.
I love the quote in the heading! 😉
Manners yes, formal etiquette no. I have venus in taurus square saturn. Even if I am capricorn dominant and saturn ‘controls’ most of it in my chart, at the end of the day, it’s in aquarius. It’s not out of malice but I wouldn’t really care about it and to this day I am not familiar with those ‘rules’. Unless I have to go into a very formal setting by obligation, cocktail dress and such (that would never happen), I wouldn’t want to be an etiquette-lacking donkey so I’d put on my donkey napkin and try not to stab my eye with the wrong knife.