Ten Million marriages
Objective: to detect any
tendency for people to attract or repel prospective partners according to their
sun sign, based on birth data related to married couples. The study was designed to look for evidence
that any combination of sun signs was found more or less often than would be
expected to occur by chance
Method: access to thedata gathered by the Office for National Statistics for the 2001 census in
England and Wales was achieved. The data were related to more than 10 million
marriages. Two tables were drawn up
1) cross-tabulation of sun signs of
married partners 2) full distribution of couples by day and month
of birth, with further breakdown into broad age group (of the husband)
Findings:
Table no 1 revealed a very small,
but statistically significant tendency for people to marry partners of the same
sun sign (22,100 couples more than
expected). There also appeared to
be some affinity between neighboring signs (26,900 couples more than
expected).
The partial overlap between astrological signs and month of birth
enabled a comparison between the probability of being married to somebody
belonging to the same sun sign and the probability of being married to somebody
born in the same month. Table no 2
showed that when data were aggregated by month, the apparent “month effect” was
greater than the “sun sign effect”, with 23,450 couples more than
expected.
The number of couples who had the same birthday was 41% higher than
expected (39,800 vs 28,300). This was
believed to be due to a response error.
Response errors, imputing errors and response artefacts were found to
explain the reported differences.
In conclusion, astrological sun
sign has no impact on the probability of marrying someone of any other sign.
Does this study prove that astrology is false?
YES, it does – at least in terms of sun sign astrology related to
compatibility of couples. The sample size was so large that any small
difference would have been detected and the comparison with a reference group
(people born in the same month) actually showed that the “month effect” was
larger than the “sun sign effect”.
Moreover, there is no reason to believe that marriages in the UK are not
representative of other populations – at least in the West. Finally, even if
the response, imputing errors and response artefacts were not to be considered,
neighboring signs are considered to be incompatible according to traditional
Western astrology and would therefore not be expected to marry.
NO, it does not. Compatibility is
not assessed only on the basis of sun signs.
On the contrary, the moon signs
are considered to be the most important factor in Vedic astrology
and the interaction between planets in
Vibrational Astrology.