A Consideration on Partner Compatibility with Emphasis on Spousal Relationships

As for major life events such as marriage, in which a man and a woman come together and build a family, there has been, regardless of time, a strong tendency to predict whether it will be auspicious or inauspicious. The original meaning of partner compatibility, which is known as Gung-Hap, is to examine the Four Pillars of Destiny for each member of a couple before marriage, and figure out how the relationship would work in the future. However, in modern society, Gung-Hap has expanded its scope to various relationships, such as between parents and children, siblings, friends, colleagues, business partners, employers and employees, and beyond. It is no longer strange to check partner compatibility with friends and lovers, and even more, people are more likely to assess partner compatibility in social relationships to understand if these relationships could be beneficial or not. When it comes to partner compatibility in spousal relationships, there has been a common ground that the Four Pillars of Destiny including birth year, month, day, and hour of each member of the couple have to be cross- examined, but the approaches are slightly different. Though, all approaches share the same goal, of balance (中和) as the ultimate value. For determining and judging the auspiciousness or inauspiciousness of spousal compatibility, both Gung((宮) and Sung(星) of the spouse are considered important, but since the spouse’s Ilji(日支) could be deemed as the dwelling place of the spouse, Gung((宮) of the spouse takes precedence over Sung(星).