Snake and Monkey: a union with thorns

In the branch tables this pair causes puzzlement. On one hand, 巳申 is listed among the six combinations 六合 (liù hé), that is, among the most favourable connections. On the other, the same pair belongs to the triple of punishments 寅巳申 (xíng) and to the list of six destructions 六破 (pò). A combination, a punishment and a destruction in one cell. How is that to be read?

For a practitioner there is no contradiction here. The classics say one thing: the attraction between these signs is real, but living side by side will not be as smooth as in a "pure" combination such as 午未. This is a pair in which people are drawn to each other and at the same time touch each other's sore spots. It resembles two specialists who respect each other and argue until they are hoarse.

What follows, in order: what these three links are, how they combine, where the pair opens up, where it breaks, and what the Goat year 2027 adds to the picture.

1 Three links in one pair

First let us untangle the knot. Here is how the classics describe each of the three links.

The punishment 寅巳申 fully appears when all three branches gather in a chart (or in the pair's charts plus a year or month): the Tiger, the Snake and the Monkey. Our pair holds two of the three, and the third is supplied, for instance, by a Tiger month or a Tiger in someone's chart. Until the Tiger is there, the punishment sounds muted, like a melody without accompaniment.

Some schools describe the combination 巳申合 as a fusion that can turn into Water. But the classics add a reservation: for the combination to "transform," Water must be present in the charts, and the Snake with its Fire gets in the way. More often the result is 合而不化, "combined but not transformed": the branches are bound but do not change nature. The partners feel the connection, no new shared element appears, and each remains themselves.

2 The elements: Fire and Metal

巳 is Fire and 申 is Metal, and Fire by the controlling cycle melts Metal (火克金). In a pair of signs this reads as a shift towards the Snake: she is more perceptive, her tempo is harder, and the Monkey sometimes feels "remelted." But again we look inside:

Two stems are shared: 庚 and 戊. Both have Metal and Earth inside, so Fire's external control of Metal is softened by the Snake itself carrying a particle of Metal. Another fact is known too: in 巳 Metal is "born" (金長生在巳), and in 申 it stands at its "post" (臨官, lín guān). The Snake is as if the cradle, the Monkey the adult version of the same element. In life this looks like the relationship of mentor and student, or senior and junior partner: the Snake often "raises" the Monkey, and the Monkey receives professional tempering from the Snake. Conflict arises when the student has grown up and the mentor has not noticed.

One point of tension remains inside: the Monkey hides 壬 (Yang Water), the Snake hides 丙 (Yang Fire), and 丙壬 is considered a stem clash in most schools. Hidden stems work in the background, so this is not a constant atmosphere but something that surfaces in sharp moments: one "douses" an emotion with cold logic, and the other flares in response.

3 The character of the pairing

The Snake is an observer and strategist, the Monkey a tactician and master of improvisation. Both are clever and both like to win, but differently: the Snake waits and strikes exactly, the Monkey finds a way round and plays with circumstances. Respect for the other's intelligence arises between them quickly. The conversations of such a pair are rich in humour, irony and light riddling.

The weak point is a distrust that keeps peeking out from behind the jokes. Both are suspicious of other people's motives, and under stress each sees a potential manipulator in the other. Transparency helps: when agreements are written down and motives spoken aloud, the 刑 and 破 work at a minimum.

4 Love and marriage

In romance the attraction is strong from the first meeting: the combination 合 acts as a magnet. Snake-Monkey couples often have a shared cause, an interest, a friendly beginning. At first everything is easy and interesting. In a year or two the punishment and destruction come into force: first cracks in daily life, disagreements about money, a wish to keep independence.

After that, what decides is where these branches stand in the charts. If 巳 and 申 sit in the day pillars (the Spouse Palace 夫妻宮, fūqī gōng), all three links work every day: attraction, quarrels and quiet cooling take turns. If the branches are only in the year pillars, they describe more of the family scripts and the general "temperature."

What helps in practice. First, delegation: do not try to do everything together; each needs their own zones. Second, honesty in small things: the Snake and the Monkey notice the unsaid instantly, and it is better to say things as they are than to wait. Third, personal money and personal time. Fourth, the habit of noting successes aloud: a pair of two sceptics rarely praises each other without reason.

Friendship

Friendship between the Snake and the Monkey is rarely boring. They love to discuss people, strategies, books, technology, and to find interesting things for each other. The Monkey helps the Snake out of its shell, and the Snake helps the Monkey concentrate. Friendship in this union is more comfortable than romance: friends have no shared household, so the destruction 破 does not accumulate.

The main rule for friendship between these branches is not to drag each other into arguments about money. You can lend, invest together or stand surety for a friend, but with a receipt or at least a message exchange in which the amount and the term are stated plainly. For this pair, paper is a way to keep the friendship, and nobody holds it against the other.

5 Work and business

A business alliance of the Snake and the Monkey is potentially very powerful. The Snake plans and sees the risks; the Monkey seeks solutions and adapts. Fields that value intelligence and flexibility suit them: analytics, technology, trade, consulting, law, finance, education, mediation.

All three links work here as well. The combination gives mutual trust on a professional question, the punishment shows in small disagreements about approach ("what's right"), and the destruction in agreements eroding over time. So in business this pair needs formality: roles, shares, deadlines and decision procedures should be written down and reviewed once a year. Without that, a brilliant start often ends with the partners parting "without explanation."

6 Typical conflicts and how to ease them

• The game of distrust. One suspects a trick, the other retreats into a joke. What is needed is a direct question and a direct answer.
• An argument about method. The Snake is for consistency, the Monkey for flexibility. Decide what cannot be changed (goals, money, promises) and what can (methods).
• Erosion of promises. Once a quarter, review shared agreements: what is being kept, what is outdated, what needs to be renewed.
• Rivalry. Both need to be the smarter one. Keep score not of points but of contribution: who does what in the project.
• Cooling. After a sharp period do not try to go back to "how it was"; better to find a new shared ritual.

7 The pair in 2027, the year of the Goat

2027 is the year 丁未 (dīng-wèi), the Fire Goat; in the solar calendar it begins with 立春 (lì chūn, the Start of Spring), around 4 February 2027. For the Snake, the year branch 未 forms two thirds of the Directional Combination 三會 巳午未, and Fire strengthens around it. For the Monkey there are no direct classical links with the year: it is neutral by branches, and the elements and the other pillars decide everything.

For the pair this means unequal conditions. The Snake enters 2027 with a reserve of Fire and feels active and confident. The Monkey gets neither help nor hindrance from the year branch. If this is not taken into account, the Snake may "overpower" with tempo, and the Monkey may feel unheard.

By months, the picture is as follows. In the first month, 壬寅 (about 4 February to 5 March), the Tiger arrives: together with 巳 and 申 it assembles the full triple punishment 寅巳申, plus the clash 寅申沖 and the harm 寅巳害. The start of the year may be tense for this pair, and not the best time for major agreements. In 丙午 (about 6 June to 6 July) the Horse closes the Directional Combination for the Snake. In 戊申 (about 8 August to 7 September) the Monkey is doubled and the 巳申 link comes fully alive: this is when the combination and the friction sharpen together. In 己酉 (about 8 September to 7 October) the Rooster forms with the Snake two of the three branches of the Metal Three Harmony 巳酉丑 (incomplete without the Ox 丑), and the tone softens. In 辛亥 (about 7 November to 6 December) the Pig clashes with the Snake (巳亥沖) and harms the Monkey (申亥害).

Month boundaries are approximate, give or take a day. And to repeat: this is a general backdrop and not a prediction of events. People with a good elemental balance in their charts pass through such months calmly.

8 Why the year sign is only the top layer

The three links between 巳 and 申 act at full strength only if the branches stand in significant pillars. In a pair where the Snake and the Monkey are such only by year, and the other pillars hold branches friendly to each other, there may be almost no friction. And the reverse: for people with these branches in the day pillars, the pair is recognisable at once.

So the real check goes through five layers: the Day Masters 日主 (rì zhǔ), the day branches (the Spouse Palaces), elemental balance, the relationship stars and the alignment of the Luck Pillars 大運 (dà yùn). Say a Snake with a 丙 Day Master and a Monkey with a 辛 Day Master form the stem combination 丙辛合, and the "union with thorns" becomes a union with a safety margin. The same branches with 丙 and 庚 Day Masters give one more layer of control. We described the method in the compatibility guide, and each sign on its own in the articles on the Year of the Snake and the Year of the Monkey. There is no single percentage here, but there is a clear map of strong and weak points.

Snake and Monkey by birth year

Between the Snake and the Monkey in the circle there are two signs (the Horse and the Goat). If the Snake is older, the age gap is 3, 15 or 27 years; if the Monkey is older, 9 or 21 years. The relationship of the year stems depends on this gap, and there is no single rule for all pairs. With a gap of exactly three years (Snake older), the Snake's year stem always controls the Monkey's:

For other gaps the pattern is different. With the Snake 15 years older, the stems form a combination: 1965 乙巳 and 1980 庚申 give 乙庚合, and 1977 丁巳 and 1992 壬申 give 丁壬合. With the Snake 27 years older, the Monkey's stem produces the Snake's (1965 乙巳 and 1992 壬申: Water feeds Wood). With the Monkey 9 years older, it is the opposite: the Snake's stem produces the Monkey's (1968 戊申 and 1977 丁巳: Fire feeds Earth). With the Monkey 21 years older, the stems share an element (1968 戊申 and 1989 己巳, both Earth). The year stem describes the family background rather than character, so do not draw strong conclusions from this table. People born in January and early February before 立春 (around 4 February) are recorded in the previous year, so check your own date. And above all, remember that depending on the Day Masters of both, this pattern can either strengthen or soften.

When the pair fails and when it works

Experience shows several typical scenarios. The Snake-Monkey pair fails when both strive too hard for control and are not ready to admit the other's rightness, when shared affairs go on without written agreements, and when one of the partners keeps playing the role of the "elder." It works when there is a shared professional or creative cause, when the distance in daily life is sufficient, when both can apologise without humiliation, and when the charts contain a third element that softens the triple punishment, for example a combination of stems or branches that links the pair more gently.

A tip for each

Snake: do not take the Monkey's jokes as frivolity. Behind them there is often tense work of the mind, and it is how the Monkey lowers the heat. Ask directly if something worries you, and listen to the answer to the end. Monkey: do not try to outplay the Snake; she notices manoeuvres and remembers them. A direct conversation with her always pays off. Both: keep a written memory of agreements, whether a shared document or notes, and consult it when "but we agreed differently" arises. It removes half of the effect of the destruction 破.

9 Frequently asked questions

Begin with the free BaZi chart for each of you, then compare the two with the compatibility tool.