Venus, the goddess of love, pleasure, and comfort, when afflicted, rules deprivation, poverty, and discomfort. Jupiter handles luck, windfalls, and things that come easy, but Venus is the planet that rules how one attains money and what creature comforts one needs in life. She is the natural ruler of the 2nd house of possessions and the 7th house of partnerships, which are both related to having money. The 2nd house may be obviously connected, but the 7th house shows us that there are riches in relationships. Yet, depending on what is going on with either house, how rich a person will be does actually depend on how they relate to money and whom they choose to partner with.
People who grow up poor are so diverse, and all too often come from places in which many people are poor, that there is no single astrological indicator of poverty. It is entirely possible that a person grows up poor but has either little knowledge or belief that they are poor, or for some other reason, it has been less of a struggle for them. Poverty is relative to the culture and country in which a person lives: a poor person in America can have more than a poor person in Mexico. However, both people have to navigate different cultures and different governments in order to get what they need. It is also possible that a child lives in poverty for any number of reasons, and those reasons can show up in the chart. However, if you take a look at the various charts of siblings who all grew up in the same home in poverty at the same time, there is a diversity in how they relate to or understand their poverty. Some of those kids are more able to overcome the poverty than others. They may find someone outside of the family who takes an interest in them and helps them, or they can get work, or they can do well in school and go on to college. This can be indicated by the condition of the 10th house. More on that later.
Venus can show how a poor person relates to, accepts or denies poverty, and how hard it will be for them to stop being poor, if they get the chance.
A person who has afflictions to the 2nd or 8th houses may grow up poor. This is true if Chiron is present in either house, or the rulers are afflicted, or if there are malefics in these houses. It is also a good idea to check the conditions of the Sun and the Moon, which represent the parents, since children do not and cannot create their own poverty. If either of these are afflicted, or if there are planets in the 4th or 10th houses that indicate a problem with the parents — like Saturn (absent or stingy), Neptune (mental illness, alcoholism, inability to focus and find motivation), Uranus (radical changes in the parents), Mars (making rash but not sound decisions) — then the result may be poverty, if there are afflictions to Venus.
Venus with hard aspects to Saturn indicates some sort of deprivation as a condition of the life born into. This exists either before the child is born, or shortly after. Saturn deprives of Venus things, which include creature comforts and riches. Venus with hard aspects to Uranus can show sudden changes in material fortune, though more usually through partners. A person with hard aspects to Venus from the Sun or Moon may have felt abandoned by the parent representing the planet, which can also be material abandonment. Venus with hard aspects to Mars shows a rashness and foolishness when it comes to money. Spend it before it disappears.
The partner, represented by the 7th house and Venus, can also show how likely one is to be poor after childhood. If a person choose a partner who is likely to keep them or make them poor, through bad choices, refusal to work or be supportive, or through abandonment. For example, person with Saturn in the 7th house may have a stingy partner who abandons them. A person with Uranus in the 7th house may have a partner who up and leaves and comes back through the relationship, or makes sudden decisions in his or her own interest without regard to the partner. Likewise, the native can become this partner, too.
Interestingly, I have found that people with Venus in the 12th house can end up with partners who either make them poor or keep them from rising out of poverty. This person either racks up a lot of credit card debt, or is otherwise unable to or unwilling to support social mobility. I have a chart of a young woman who had Venus, Mars, and Neptune in the 12th house. Her first husband, whom she married while still a teenager, was an illiterate former meth addict who turned hardline born-again Christian and insisted that she didn‘t work and homeschool their child. Of course, not being able to read well, there was little work he could do, and the person who could earn more money had a vagina, so she couldn‘t work. This girl was not from a place in the world where being illiterate or a meth addict was okay; so, why marry him?
Well, the preacher who married them figured it would keep them from having pre-marital sex, so that was a reason. But, one of the interesting things about people with Venus in the 12th house is that there is a tendency to think that a love that is persecuted is the truest, in that if other people are against it, they must strive all the more to keep it. While this can be true for many relationships people find socially inappropriate for whatever reason, there are times in which a relationship that is impractical and possibly destructive (hello, 12th house!) ought not to be set in stone. This is especially so for people with Venus/Neptune conjunctions, as they can confuse love with the wish for love or compassion with love. In the end, it is very hard to stay in love with a person who holds you back, drags you down, or makes life harder and not easier. A person with Venus in say, the 10th house, wouldn‘t dream of dating, much less marrying a meth addict who can‘t read. This is not something they could overlook, but the 12th house Venus is amazing at turning a blind eye to what others find to be glaring.
Last I heard, she left the first husband, was dating a man who was doing well, but the husband wasn‘t allowing the divorce, so she is waiting it out, which means that 12th house Venus is still getting what she wants, which is love against the odds.
