mutually exclusive, the cleaning up of rough edges, the ordering of the pattern.  Marriage to Libra is like a sixteenth-century dance.  Every step, every gesture, has a ritualized meaning.  Libra is the great sign of ritual.  And remember that Libra's symbol, the balance, is an inanimate object.  Libra tries to lift ordinary human living onto the level of Platonic ideals.  Not that he's incapable of being erotic or deeply sensual.  But often sex itself must be ritualized, otherwise it turns him off. 

You'll hear the words 'fair' and 'equal' mentioned a lot in conversations with Libra.  The Libran's sense of what is fair is so acute that he can spot an imbalance miles away.  He believes passionately in fairness, and this often causes him a great deal of unhappiness, because life and people aren't always fair.  Again and again his idealism collides with an imbalanced world full of imperfections and rough edges.  Libra believes passionately in equality, too, particularly in relationships.  If you do him a favour, he does you a favour.  If you pay for dinner, he'll pay for the theatre tickets.  In many ways he's truly an enlightened soul when it comes to male-female relationships, for he understands in a very real way what equality and fair play mean, and he won't use sex to tip the balance.  Here, too, he often meets with sad disillusionment, because finding a relationship where each partner gives exactly the same amount and takes exactly the same amount, where there isn't one slightly stronger or one who loves slightly more, is like finding a unicorn.  But Libra believes in unicorns too, and may often be seen moving from one relationship to another, one job to another, one country to another, believing and believing and believing that one day, some day, he'll find that perfect companion, that perfect career, that perfect environment where no ugliness or coarseness or human tragedy intrudes. 

Like Socrates, Libra seeks the Good, the True and the Beautiful.  Even the Libra who's learned to use his notorious charm to manipulate people and situations still seeks these things.  He seeks them in whatever field of life you find him, in whatever relationship he enters.  He usually knows by the time he reaches his mid-thirties that the Good, the True and the Beautiful are concepts and symbols rather than facts which he's likely to meet on the street.  But he'll go on trying.  And one of the nicest qualities about this curious sign is that in his eternal efforts to change the world and make it a place where the Good, the True and the Beautiful can make their abode, he often succeeds in making life just a little better, a little more beautiful, a little more harmonious than it might otherwise have been.  Like his planetary ruler Venus, he has the gift of creating style and grace and harmony wherever he goes.  More earthy souls often don't appreciate Libra's special gift.  But those who know that hyacinths for the soul are as necessary as that extra five pounds a week on the salary cheque appreciate Libra. 

Libra has a quality of initiation, a need to have goals, which the sign shares in common with Aries, Cancer and Capricorn.  All these signs have as a basic characteristic the need to be working toward something.  Libra is usually looking for order, for perfection, for an ideal of relationship.  Because he's always aware of other people's viewpoints, he won't often show aggressiveness or pushiness in his encounters with others.  But don't forget that he possesses just as much initiative as his more overt cousins born under Aries and Capricorn.  He's always after something.  The difference is that, in order to really feel confident about achieving it, Libra needs a partner.  If you spend some time with a Libran, you'll learn to recognize the royal Libran 'we'.  Aries simply says, 'I want that.  Do it.'  Libra is far more diplomatic, far cagier.  He's born with a downright frightening awareness that the world is full of people who have opinions which differ from his.  He'll always listen to other opinions, frequently agreeing with them in order to encourage his partner or opponent to talk more.  In the end, he does exactly as he pleases.  But somehow he always succeeds in giving the impression that he's done it because of your cooperation.  In fact, you might even walk away thinking it was really your idea, and that you pushed him.  Instead of 'Do it.'  Libra would much rather approach gently, with the famous charming smile, and say, 'You know, I was thinking that it would be really nice for everyone here if we….' And you're hooked.  How thoughtful he is.  How genuinely concerned with others' needs and ideas.