Palm Lines
Marriage Line
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Origin 1100 to 1200
The Marriage Line, or Marriage Lines, are minor lines in Western palmistry found on the side of the palm below the little finger, above the Heart line, and a hand may show none, one or several of them. Palmists traditionally read each line as marking a significant emotional partnership or marriage, with the line closest to the base of the finger said to represent the earliest such relationship and higher lines later ones, and depth is read as a rough measure of the relationship's significance rather than its date. This traditional reading has drawn particular scepticism even within palmistry, since it implies a hand's markings can predict a specific count of future relationships, a claim increasingly downplayed by modern practitioners in favour of reading the lines as showing capacity for emotional commitment generally. As with the rest of palmistry, this is a traditional interpretive practice rather than a finding of medical or physiological science.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1100 to 1200 1Tradition: Medieval Latin chiromancy Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account1843 to 1859 2Tradition: French chirognomy and chiromancy (d'Arpentigny and Desbarrolles) Origin PeriodNamed within twelfth-century medieval Latin chiromancy, and given its modern form in the French chirognomy of Desbarrolles and d'Arpentigny between 1843 and 1859. 1 Attributed Author / CompilerSourced to the subject's own accountCasimir Stanislas d'Arpentigny (La Chirognomonie, 1843) and Adolphe Desbarrolles (Les Mysteres de la Main, 1859). The named lines and their readings as the atlas records them are the French nineteenth-century system, given its popular English form by Cheiro. 2 Origin of the NameAlso called an affection line 1 Learn More
The Marriage Lines
The marriage lines, also called relationship or affection lines, are the short horizontal creases on the outer edge of the palm below the little finger, above the heart line, and the tradition reads them for significant relationships, taking their number, length and clarity for the number and quality of attachments, with forks and breaks read for separation. These are among the most frequently asked-about features in commercial palm reading and among the least defensible. They are minor secondary creases whose formation is not well characterised, their number varies with the observer counting them, and no association with relationship history has been demonstrated. The reading also assumes a particular model of a life course, one or two lasting marriages, that is culturally specific, and the interpretations offered in the nineteenth-century sources take that model for granted in ways a present-day reader should treat with caution.
What the Marriage Line Actually Is
The lines a chiromant reads are flexion creases, and they have an anatomy of their own that is independent of anything read from them. The primary creases form in the womb, around the twelfth and thirteenth weeks, as the hand begins to fold; they mark where the skin is tethered to the fascia beneath so that it hinges cleanly instead of bunching. They are set before birth and change very little afterward, which is the first thing a reader should know about them.
What the tradition calls the Marriage Line is small secondary creases on the outer edge below the little finger. Their number varies widely and is not stable across the two hands of one person, which is a difficulty for any reading that takes the count as a count of anything.
It is worth separating chiromancy from dermatoglyphics, which is often confused with it and is a different subject. Dermatoglyphics studies the ridge patterns of the skin, the loops and whorls used in fingerprinting, and it has a genuine research literature including work on developmental correlates. Palmistry reads the flexion creases, which are a different structure entirely, and there is no body of evidence connecting crease form to character, career or lifespan. The atlas records what the chiromantic tradition says about this line because that tradition is a real object of study. It does not endorse the reading.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Disciplines That Use This
The major and minor lines.
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