How to Determine "happiness" in horary?

Please share your knowledge or suggestions on this, as they will be appreciated. I wanted to know if a person was happy with a current situation. The significator was Retrograde Mars in Leo (about 17 degrees), situated exactly between the querent's (myself) 4th and fifth house. This would be the cusp of the 10th and 11th houses of the quesited.

Here is how I interpreted it. First I applied the "five degree" rule, which says that a planet in horary should be interpreted as being in the next house if it is within 5 degrees of the cusp of that house. Since Mars is retrograde, I moved it in the direction it was headed- back into my 4th house. This made Mars stronger or "happier" because the 4th is angular.Then I went to Ptolemy and found no dignity for Mars in the sign of Leo. Is this done correctly or am I misreading the chart? Then I considered the retro motion as lessening Mars'comfort level, making him less "happy". Over all, I decided that the person Mars signified was overall not really thrilled with the situation, and may be revisiting it in his mind. Now, do you agree with the analysis, or do you have another opinion? Also what other factors should be examined? Thanks for your help.PS this situation was the ending of a personal relationship.

Hi-I'm not sure horary can actually tell us if a person is *happy* or not but what we can do is look at the sig. If it's in a good state, then its going to be receiving positive aspects from benefics, be strong by sign and house and direct.
As the moon in astrology usually describes the action and the querent's feelings (unless its a sig for the quesited) the moon can't give us many clues to the emotional state of the other person.
However, a significator under duress can indicate the person is also under duress.

Having Mars as a sig at the moment is a real downer..Mars can't act.It's in Leo too where Mars likes to act but as you say *going back into the past. Leo is not known to be especially introspective, so if you're trying to interpret a chart where the other person is mars, you'd need to consider every aspect Mars is making or receiving, but overall Mars is certainly not able to make progress in the current sky.

Sometimes in a love type question if one of the sigs is retro it can mean they are wanting to get back together, but not necessarily for healthy reasons that will last. So it's not just the getting together of planets that confirms union, the nature of the sign etc will give us more info as to the quality of that relationship.
Cheers
Lilly

Since the description of the situation is not clear to me, I will respond in a more speculative fashion. I would be cautious here with the dignity for mars. If mars is, just to give you an example, in your own sign that your significator rules, then, I would think he feels strong towards you. So, even though mars is peregrine with respect to itself, it feels strong with respect to you. There is a number of possibilities that may remain undetermined.

Regarding its retro position, again, depending to the situation it may be favorable or not.

Once again, we corroborate how difficult is to define happiness and how relative that is….