In astrology, a cadent house is the last house of each quadrant of the zodiac. A quadrant begins with an Angular house, (the house in which a chart angle lies) proceeds to a succedent house and ends with a cadent house. There are four quadrants in an astrological chart, providing four angular, four succedent, and four cadent houses.
The Greeks called the cadent houses apoklima, which literally means "falling" or "decline," because the houses were seen to be falling away from the strength of the angular houses, which were considered to be most influential because of their perpendicular and oppositive relationships to the Ascendant. The word apoklima also carries a denotation of degeneration and decline. Our English word "cadent" comes from the Latin translation of apoklima and is the source of our word "cadet," which originally meant a lesser branch of the family, or the younger son.
Cadent houses are therefore usually considered by astrologers as less fertile and productive places by their nature than either angular or succedent houses, and the planets located in them are seen as generally less powerful and comfortable. This view of cadency is universally found in ancient sources. For example, Paulus Alexandrinus says of cadent houses: "stars [ed: i.e., planets] found in these zoidia [ed: i.e., houses] (3, 6, 9 and 12) become inharmonious. And sometimes they bring about hostile conditions, sometimes separations and banishments...." (However, there are conditions when a planet in a cadent house can be brought up to its full strength, for example, by a reasonably close trine to a benefic planet, such as Jupiter).
The notion of cadent houses as weak and ineffective also persists with medieval and Renaissance astrologers, such as Guido Bonatti and William Lilly, who labeled cadent houses "poor and of little efficacy."
The four cadent houses
The four cadent houses are as follows:
The third house of the horoscope governs our siblings, letters and messengers, our neighbourhood, and short trips. Modern astrologers have also connected it our ability to communicate and to intellectualise. The sixth house of the horoscope refers to illness, and also to our duties and responsibilities, and the most routine aspects of work. The sixth is the house of servants, and so may also refer to our service to others, but also to slavery, or that which we are obliged to do but do not necessarily want to do. It has been connected by Lilly to smaller domestic animals as well, "and the profit and loss got thereby." The ninth house of the horoscope governs our higher cognition, religious beliefs, and level of awareness. It is also the house of higher education and philosophy and is connected with long journeys far from home. Some modern astrologers also give it an association with the law. The twelfth house of the horoscope governs troubles, self-undoing, secret enemies, and imprisonment (for example in asylums or penitentiaries), as well as larger domestic animals, such as draught animals. Theosophists like Annie Besant influenced astrologers like Isabel Hickey to connect this house to karma from past lives.
Natural houses
In the twentieth century, a concept called "natural houses" was popular, in which it was argued that each of the twelve houses of the astrological chart corresponds to a sign of the zodiac: the first house corresponds to Aries, the second to Taurus, and so forth, continuing through the chart until the twelfth house, which is linked to Pisces.
Employing "natural houses," the third house would correspond to Gemini, the sixth house to Virgo, the ninth house to Sagittarius, and the twelfth house to Pisces, and adherents of the notion borrow archetypal concepts from the signs and apply them to the corresponding houses.
The idea of numerological correspondences goes back at least as far as Pythagoras and was surely instrumental in the interpretation by ancient astrologers of the angular relationships each house has with the others, and especially with the Ascendant. This may account for similarities between the idea of Gemini and the idea of the third house. But the "natural houses" doctrine stretches these similarities to a point which seriously distorts the original concepts. Hardly any of these zodiacal correspondences result in the same characteristics or dignities observed by earlier astrologers.
Furthermore, using "natural houses," cadent signs are seen to be very flexible and adaptive and correspond with the mutable signs of the zodiac. But this obscures the essentially weak and unfavorable nature of these houses. Planets positioned in them lack influence and may even become malefic—that is, they may have an unfortunate effect.