Women’s rights are a relatively recent phenomenon in historical terms even in the west. Full voting rights were established in many countries only in the early 20th Century. The UK took several steps towards equality in voting starting in 1918 with a final completion in 1928. The USA adopted full suffrage for women in 1920, having seen a previous attempt in 1848 struck down by the Supreme Court.
Saturn Neptune conjunctions have been present at several of the landmark women’s equality markers. The UK Married Women’s Property Act of August 1882 which allowed married women to own and control property in their own right occurred with Neptune and Saturn in Taurus. The UK Representation of the People Act February 1918 on a Saturn Neptune in Leo – and this was when the push for full voting rights for women in the USA was underway.
Both Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne to exert tremendous feminine influence over matters of state on Saturn–Neptune conjunctions — in 1558 in Taurus and in 1953 in Libra. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria, who reigned for 63 years have Saturn–Neptune squares in their birth charts. Benazir Bhutto became the first woman prime minister of Pakistan on the conjunction in Capricorn in 1988, though it proved a short-lived triumph. Around the same time, Margaret Thatcher, the first British woman prime minister, handed in her staff of power and resigned.
Afghanistan has a chequered history towards women with the then king issuing legislation in 1919 to abolish slavery, guarantee secular education, and institute equal rights for men and women. In 1929 the king was overthrown and all voting rights were removed. It wasn’t until after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that people regained the right to vote in 2004.
The Taliban who arrived in 1996 are notorious for their misogyny and violence against women. Since their appearance on the scene, women have been forced to wear the burqa at all times in public, not allowed to work, or be educated after the age of eight. Not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperone, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. Under 16 years of age marriage encouraged. 80 per cent of Afghan marriages are forced.
Recent hardening of anti-women decrees, banned them from university education, gyms, public baths, public parks, and amusement parks. The education ban was condemned by Islamic scholars inside Afghanistan, and by the Muslim World League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and by Muslim-majority countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. This year the Taliban began to restrict access to contraceptives. They stated that “family planning is a western agenda”.
Taking the founder of Taliban, Mullah Omar’s investiture as First Taliban Emir on 27 September 1996, as a putative chart for the Taliban it gives Sun Libra conjunct North Node opposition Saturn (Moon) in Aries square Jupiter – with Pluto at zero degrees Sagittarius. It is undergoing massive force changes at the moment with tr Pluto conjunct the Uranus and the Solar Arc Sun opposition Saturn squaring the Uranus. The present ruler has issued a statement recently backtracking on recent restrictions on women but whether that is to be believed and a ploy to gain international recognition or not is questionable. Perhaps Pluto having moved on two signs might indicate a shift up and coming.
The Afghanistan 19 August 1919 12 am country chart, is inherently unsettled and very fixed at the same time. There is a Leo Sun conjunct Saturn opposition Uranus square a Taurus Moon conjunct the South Node. A focal point Taurus Moon on the South Node might suggest obsessive and regressive views of mother/women. Uranus ‘should’ be tolerant but can in negative mode be lawless or law-unto-itself type of entity – and opposition Saturn can also be authoritarian. The Afghanistan chart is due for a fair amount of turmoil before tr Uranus exits Taurus as it will square the Sun in 2024 and conjunct the Moon and then in 2025 square the Uranus, before moving to square the Saturn – a three year patch of jolts, jangles and turbulence which may undermine the Taliban and assist the women (maybe).
Afghanistan under the Taliban feels a touch like North Korea under Kim Jung Un – a surreal and dystopian nightmare.
To wrap up Saturn Neptune:
Saturn Neptune conjunctions were also around for key points of interest in works about or by women. Jane Austen’s first novel Sense and Sensibility emerged in 1811 under the conjunction in Sagittarius. Next conjunction around, in Aquarius and Pisces in 1847, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights met with public acclaim.
In the previous century, on the conjunction in Virgo in 1773, Oliver Goldsmith’s play She Stoops to Conquer and Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses looked archly at women’s behaviour. In 1665 under Saturn–Neptune in Aquarius, Molière produced The Misanthrope and The Dumb Lady. In similar vein during the last conjunction in 1989 in Capricorn the sculptor Anish Kapoor picked up the mood of the moment with his Mother as Void work; and Pedro Almodovar, the Spanish film-maker, produced his cult movie Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Just looked up the date for women’s suffrage in NZ, the 1st country that allowed women to vote. A new electoral act was signed into law 19 Sept 1893.
I notice there was an exact (within 11 min) neptune saturn trine on that date
Another Neptune Saturn conjunction in Aries occurred in March 1703. It coincided with the War of the Spanish succession. Under Queen Anne England began to emerge as a world power, particularly due to the military successes of the Duke of Marlborough and the growth of the Royal Navy. 1703 was also the year of a Great Storm that struck southern England killing 8,000 people. Isaac Newton became head of the Royal Society.
Would someone comment on the astro significance of Puritan war against women witches? Circa mid-1600’s.
“As both a sin against God and a crime against the community, witchcraft was therefore punishable by death…”
Larry, I see that the Salem Witch Trials in the US began under Neptune in Pisces in square aspect to Saturn in Sagittarius (February 1692 – May 1693). I would imagine that a propensity for fanaticism would be a negative manifestation of that aspect. Marjorie has previously mentioned how Pisces crops up regularly in the charts of modern terrorists, particularly ISIS members.
The European witch hunts were over by the time of Salem but flourished during the middle of the century. In England they took place alongside the English Civil War which saw the rise of folk such as Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witchfinder General. Interestingly there was a Saturn/Neptune trine at the start of the Civel War, with Neptune in Scorpio and Saturn in Pisces. There’s a book by Norman Cohn, ‘Europe’s Inner Demons’ which delves into the origin of witch mania and how it took hold in the late 15th/early 16th century and then again – against a polical backdrop of sectarian strife – during the mid 17th.
It may come as no surprise that in 2016, the year Trump was elected there occurred a Saturn in Sagittarius/Neptune in Pisces square.
Hi there. Rcvd an email just yesterday (7/9) from a friend who has been researching her family. Come to learn that a female relative was hanged in July 1692 at the ripe old age of 71. For being a witch. The village elders must hv really wanted her property. Or else she was tremendously outspoken. Pretty broad date and location for a chart; I admit to lacking those skills 😉
I sincerely hope that those trials never return. Life is its own challenge.
Her name was Rebecca Nurse.
Wow. Anyone familiar with the Salem story will know of Rebecca Nurse, one of the oldest of the accused she was in her early 70s. Accused by the Putnam family she was at first acquitted but when the wails and protests from the young accusers who claimed she was indeed a witch and was using magic powers to torment them, she was found guilty. Later one of her accusers confessed that she’d made up the allegations due to the influence of Satan (a likely excuse!). Thanks very much, Larry.
I see there is a monument in her memory in Massachusetts and an inscription:
Rebecca Nurse, Yarmouth, England 1621. Salem, Mass., 1692.
O Christian Martyr who for Truth could die
When all about thee owned the hideous lie!
The world redeemed from Superstition’s sway
Is breathing freer for thy sake today.
So she was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk not far from my own county. Witch country is all around us here – it was Matthew Hopkins territory.
Poor woman, and what a discovery for your friend to make! Her birthday was 21 February, 1621. A quick glance says she was likely to have been a strong character, possibly a bit eccentric. Obviously, in those days, being an eccentric woman could get you killed.
You can look up historical ephemerides on astro.com. and elsewhere.
In fact she was regarded with great respect, being a devout churchgoer and on good terms with her neighbours. At trial she was described as an invalid, hard of hearing but her demeanour was dignified. She was so widely respected that 39 prominent Salem community members signed a petition on her behalf. Likewise when at the gallows her conduct and courage impressed the community. But the so-called ‘afflicted’ were determined. Incidentally some of the children who accused her and others were adopted, having seen their parents slain as well as other horrors that beset the ealy settlers. They would have been severely traumatised and therefore perhaps primed for and susceptible to the hysteria and violence of the witch fantasy.
@VF: I’ll post back to my friend in Austin, TX.
I’m glad to finally have made a small contribution to the forum.
Thanks for looking into this, Marjorie, and for all your insights. If the Saturn Neptune conjunction is thought beneficial for women’s right’s, I suspect we should look to the conjunction in Taurus in 2063 (as opposed to the upcoming 2026 conjunction in Aries) as the more optimistic of the two. While I certainly trust women will continue to make gains between now and then, I worry that that the democratic backsliding that we’re all witnessing will continue to have implications for women also.
Also, I looked at the 2063 Neptune-Saturn conjunction on Afghanistan’s chart (provided they haven’t become a failed state by then) and their Venus in Virgo will be making an opposition to Pluto alongside a Neptune square. It’s probably too far away to see how that will play out but it’s hard to swallow what’s happened in the last two years after the relative gains made for women under the US invasion. Everyone has since seemingly turned their backs on these women who’ve already been through hell
I hope the coming Saturn/Neptune conjunction helps women and girls everywhere. Thank you Marjorie for such a detailed look at this concerning current situation. As for Afghanistan, there are photos online of women between 1950’s and 70’s in Afghanistan wearing ordinary European style clothes, going to university, and walking around freely. Something similar has happened to women’s freedoms in Iran, but there is fierce resistance there now from angry women. It is hard to believe this is all still happening in our world in the 21st century. Yet, it is.
A brief add-on: the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1 April 1979, has Moon 28 Taurus, opposing Uranus 20 Scorpio. That seems to resonate with 1919 Afghanistan chart here with its late Taurus Moon square Uranus in Aquarius. Both charts also have Saturn in Virgo, for Iran at 8 Virgo so receiving an opposition by transit now.
Virgo, sign of the ancient maiden grain goddess. Astraea is one goddess linked to the sign, and with the idea of justice. Another goddess sometimes linked with Virgo is Persephone, abducted by Pluto and taken to live underground as his bride. At this point, the Virgo Persephone myth would seem to be at the underground stage. But she is rescued, and eventually spends half the year ruling in Hades, half above ground……
That’s interesting about Virgo, Jane. Also your observation that Saturn in Virgo appears in the charts of both Iran and Afghanistan.
I think that Virgo must play an astrological role in female emancipation particularly when you think about the Uranus/Pluto conjunction of those of us born in the 60s which was synchronous with the Women’s Liberation Movement of that era, as well as with a marked increase in the number of women in the workplace and women taking on more executive roles which were more traditionally male. As you say, both countries during that period were relatively free for women. It has been posited that the original meaning of ‘Virgo’ is a woman who lives independently of men, not owned by a man and who has her own wealth. Goddesses like Ishtar, Diana, Astarte and Isis were called virgins not because they were inexperienced sexually, but because they were strong, independent goddesses.
Yes, VF, I have also read about the mistranslation of the word virgin in the Bible, and how it can mean an independent woman – fascinating to consider, but a little depressing isn’t it…. Also, it occurs to me that in centuries past sometimes a kind of freedom and social position was found in convents, where women weren’t always ‘virgins’ in the technical sense. Certainly the convents in Venice were somewhat irregular! And the Vestal Virgins had financial freedom and so on in Ancient Rome.
The women in those photos of freedom in Afghanistan and Iran must now be in their 60’s and 70’s. I imagine quite a number are around, and probably think of their younger days with amazement and sorrow. How must they feel about life for their daughters and grand-daughters now?
Interesting what you say about the Saturn/Neptune square of 2016, a year when so much changed for the worse it seems. And Trump/Boris cries of “it’s a witch-hunt!” chime right in. Not that they have a clue what that really meant.
Hi all,
I think it’s pretty well known but Elizabeth 1, also dubbed “the Virgin Queen” was a Sun Virgo opposite Neptune trine Saturn. She was celebrated for the stability she brought to England (44yrs on the throne), religious tolerance/Protestant reformation (believing that religion should be practiced on a personal level), and her defeat of the Spanish Armada. Although obviously romanticized, the Elizabethan Age was one of progress and simultaneously of renaissance with the expansion of theatre (Shakespeare), literature and poetry (Marlowe), music (Campion), and fine art – all while never having married let alone producing an heir.
Sarah Dunant’s novel – I think Sacred Hearts – was an eye opener. It was superbly well reviewed otherwise I would not have gone near a novel about a convent in Renaissance Italy – since my notion of nuns was hardly favourable. It turned out to be a haven of freedom for women escaping brutal marriages/fathers/families and allowing them to develop their talents. Much to be recommended.
That sounds very appealing, Marjorie, I’ll look forward to reading it. My notion of nuns isn’t great either (!), but studying womens’ history I realised that their history is complicated and not always what I might have assumed from later horrors.
I briefly checked out the astonishing, mystical Hildegard of Bingen, but only reliable data is her birth year of 1098. There is a Saturn in Libra sextile Neptune in Leo that year. Also, Jupiter in Taurus conjunct Uranus in Taurus, as we shall enjoy next year. Taurus can be very musical, and her music is really beautiful.
Teresa of Avila is another mystical nun, with great determination and leadership skills. Also a visionary mystic. 28 March 1515 – Saturn in Sagittarius opposes Mars/Jupiter in Gemini, and Neptune in Aquarius is sextile Uranus in Aries. She has six mutable planets, plus a mutable AC/MC.
I don’t know much about astrocartography, but would it be worth looking at the astrocartographical charts of Saturn and Neptune in the affected places and times?
Neptune and Saturn were conjunct in Aries in March 1380. Richard II had just been declared old enough to rule by Parliament. It was the year Wycliffe began translating the Bible into English and the English Crown started levying Poll Taxes to pay for the Hundred Years War which led to the Peasants Revolt in 1381.
Now that is more like what is coming Hugh. Aries is the male ram fired up by Mars after all. Re writing history to keep women down as in translation g the bible.. Sorry everyone. Taurus is after all a female sign and rules money and beauty so that upcoming conjunction much better for women generally. Only 40 years to wait.
I suppose the Conjunction comes into orb while Saturn is still in feminine Pisces but all the close alignments occur in Aries. The two planets are within one degree from late June to August 2025 and the conjunction is exact on 20 February 2026. The final event is preceded by a Mars Pluto conjunction at 3 Airies on 27 January 2026. This will be sextile Neptune so it will pick up the impact of that meeting. Uranus is retrograde at 27 Taurus in this period and uncomfortably close to fixed star Algol.
Apologies that should read Pluto Mars at 3 Aquarius.