Chinese Zodiac Six Harms: Liu Hai Pairs Explained
Six Harms, or 六害 Liù Hài, are six one-to-one Earthly Branch pairings, commonly shown through their zodiac animals. Older fate-calculation texts treat Six Harms as a separate type of adverse Earthly-Branch relationship. It is distinct from Six Conflicts, but the classical source does not rank it simply as a milder version of a clash.
Three Harmonies, Six Harmonies, and Six Conflicts cover most compatibility questions on this site, but another named branch-relationship category exists alongside them. This page sets out the six Six Harms pairs, what a Ming-dynasty source says about each one, and how the category differs from the other three.
Six Harms quick answer
The six Six Harms pairs are Rat–Goat, Ox–Horse, Tiger–Snake, Rabbit–Dragon, Monkey–Pig, and Rooster–Dog. Every one of the twelve animals appears in exactly one pair.
Six Harms is a technical label from the Earthly Branches (地支) — twelve symbolic signs used in the traditional Chinese calendar and in BaZi, a birth-chart system built from a person’s year, month, day, and hour of birth. “Harm” here names a branch relationship, not a promise that two real people will hurt each other. The classical source explains each pair through element and phase language, and this page reports what it says rather than treating it as settled fact. Technically, Six Harms is a relationship between Earthly Branches and can appear between branches in any of the four BaZi pillars, not only the birth-year branch. The animal names on this page are a reader-friendly way to display the six branch pairs; they do not mean the rule is limited to birth-year zodiac animals.
The six Six Harms pairs
Both branches are described as vigorous, but the source still gives the relationship a direction: Goat’s strong earth is said to harm Rat’s strong water.
Horse’s vigorous fire is described as overwhelming Ox’s weakened metal. Covered in more depth on the Horse and Ox page.
Both branches are read through the same strong 临官 stage, framed as rivalry between two signs each asserting its own ability.
Rabbit’s vigorous wood is described as overwhelming Dragon’s weakened earth — the text calls this “the young overpowering the elder.”
The same strong 临官 stage as Tiger–Snake, here framed as jealousy over ability and competing to advance.
Dog’s weakened fire is described as harming Rooster’s vigorous metal — the one pair where the weaker-phase branch is said to act on the stronger one.
Six Harms branch table: what the classical source says
| Pair | Chinese branch pair | What Sanming Tonghui says | Named label |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rat · Goat | 子未害 | Both are described as strong: Goat’s vigorous earth is said to harm Rat’s vigorous water. | 势家相害 — “mutual harm between two powerful houses” |
| Ox · Horse | 丑午害 | Horse’s vigorous fire is described as overwhelming Ox’s weakened metal. | 官鬼相害 — a traditional technical label used by the source (guānguǐ, literally “official-ghost”; 官鬼 is also a standard term in traditional Six Relatives divination vocabulary, not unpacked further here) |
| Tiger · Snake | 寅巳害 | Both rely on 临官, a strong, maturing stage, “flaunting ability while advancing.” | No four-character label given in the source |
| Rabbit · Dragon | 卯辰害 | Rabbit’s vigorous wood is described as overwhelming Dragon’s weakened earth. | 以少凌长相害 — “the young overpowering the elder” |
| Monkey · Pig | 申亥害 | Both rely on 临官 again, described as “competing out of jealousy over ability.” | No four-character label given in the source |
| Rooster · Dog | 酉戌害 | Dog’s weakened fire is described as harming Rooster’s vigorous metal. | 嫉妒相害 — “jealousy mutual harm” |
Source: the Ming-dynasty Sanming Tonghui (三命通会), compiled by Wan Min-ying, in its 论六害 (“On the Six Harms”) chapter — the same classical source this site’s Horse and Ox compatibility page cites for the Ox–Horse pair. 临官 (línguān, “assuming office”) is a strong stage in the Twelve Stages of Growth (十二长生) system used in Chinese fate calculation, immediately before 帝旺, the peak stage — strong and maturing, but not yet the strongest point in the cycle. It is named here as the shared mechanism for two pairs but not explained further, in keeping with how the source itself treats it.
One pattern worth noting: the six pairs do not all work the same way. One pair (Rat–Goat) has both branches described as vigorous, yet the source still gives the relationship a direction — Goat’s earth is said to harm Rat’s water. Two pairs (Ox–Horse, Rabbit–Dragon) follow a vigorous-branch-overwhelms-weakened-branch pattern. Two more (Tiger–Snake, Monkey–Pig) are framed as rivalry between branches sharing the same strong 临官 stage, rather than one overwhelming the other. Rooster–Dog runs opposite to the vigorous-over-weak pattern — the weakened branch (Dog) is the one said to cause harm. The source does not explain why this last pair reverses that pattern.
A possible explanation the source itself does not give: in all four pairs above that are framed through vigorous-versus-weakened phases, the branch said to cause harm is also the one whose element conquers the other’s under the standard Five-Element cycle — earth conquers water (Goat over Rat), fire conquers metal (Horse over Ox, and again Dog over Rooster), and wood conquers earth (Rabbit over Dragon). That cycle does not care which branch happens to be in a more vigorous phase at that particular point — fire structurally conquers metal whether the fire branch itself is vigorous (Horse) or weakened (Dog). If that holds, the “vigorous vs weakened” phase language may just be flavor describing each branch’s own condition, while the fixed element-conquering relationship is what actually decides the direction — which would explain both why Rat–Goat still has a direction despite both being vigorous, and why Rooster–Dog reverses the usual vigorous-over-weak pattern without needing a special exception. This reading does not extend to Tiger–Snake or Monkey–Pig, which the source frames as a shared 临官 rivalry rather than an element-conquering relationship.
A much older, and more skeptical, precedent
The Ming-dynasty Six Harms scheme above is not the first time zodiac animals were said to overcome each other through elemental logic. Writing around 80 CE — roughly fifteen centuries before Sanming Tonghui, compiled around 1578 — the Eastern Han thinker Wang Chong recorded a similar-sounding folk theory in his Lunheng (论衡): wood’s tiger subdues the earth of ox, sheep, and dog; water’s pig and rat overcome the fire of snake and horse. The text states it plainly: “水胜火,故豕食蛇。火为水所害,故马食鼠屎而腹胀” — water overcomes fire, so the pig eats the snake; fire is harmed by water, so the horse eats rat droppings and its belly swells.
Wang Chong then argues against his own summary, using the same passage’s own rhetorical questions: “水胜火,鼠何不逐马?金胜木,鸡何不啄兔?土胜水,牛羊何不杀豕?火胜金,蛇何不食猕猴?” — water overcomes fire, so why doesn’t the rat chase the horse? metal overcomes wood, so why doesn’t the chicken peck the rabbit? earth overcomes water, so why don’t cattle and sheep kill the pig? fire overcomes metal, so why doesn’t the snake eat the macaque? His conclusion: real dominance among creatures comes from strength, vigor, and skill (筋力、气势、巧便), not abstract Five-Element correspondence. His pairing logic is different from the six branch-pairs above — he is grouping animals by their assigned element directly, not by the mechanism behind the Six Harms pairs — so this is not another source for the same six pairs. What it does show is that skepticism toward mechanically applying Five-Element dominance to zodiac animals was already explicit in the Eastern Han period.
Wang Chong made the same style of argument elsewhere in Lunheng, in the separate 偶会 (“Chance Coincidences”) chapter, on a different topic: people blaming one spouse for the other’s early death through a supposed mutual-harm relationship. His conclusion there was the same shape as his animal argument — 非相贼害,命自然也, “it is not mutual harm; it is simply how things fall out naturally.” It is a different passage about a different kind of pairing — it does not mention zodiac signs or Earthly Branches at all — so it is not another source for the Six Harms list, but it shows the same skepticism running through more than one chapter of his work.
The same six pairs, sung as a folk rhyme
Outside classical fate-calculation texts, the same six pairs survive in Chinese oral folklore as a marriage-matching taboo rhyme, still quoted today in several recorded wordings. One common version runs: “从来白马怕青牛,羊鼠相逢一旦休;蛇见猛虎如刀断,猪与猿猴不到头;龙逢兔儿云端走,金鸡见犬泪交流” — roughly, “the white horse has always feared the green ox; when sheep and rat meet, it ends at once; snake meeting fierce tiger is like a knife cutting; pig and monkey never last; dragon and rabbit part ways; golden rooster meeting dog brings tears.” Line by line, the pairs match Ox–Horse, Rat–Goat, Tiger–Snake, Monkey–Pig, Rabbit–Dragon, and Rooster–Dog — the same six branch-pairs named in Sanming Tonghui, carried by a memorable rhyme rather than a classical text. Like most oral folklore, the rhyme circulates in more than one wording; the pairs stay consistent even where the exact phrasing does not.
Does zodiac compatibility still shape marriage matching?
This shows up in ordinary dating practice, not just old texts. Before or during a matchmaking introduction (相亲), it is common for both sides to exchange basic details early — birth year, and often birth month — partly so each can check the other’s zodiac sign. Rabbit and Dragon, this page’s own Six Harms pair, is one combination people commonly raise directly: someone born in a Rabbit year meeting a Dragon-year match may be asked outright whether they mind the traditional “incompatibility” label, echoing the same folk rhyme quoted above (“龙兔泪交流” — dragon and rabbit bring tears — appears in another recorded version of that rhyme).
Belief in unfavorable zodiac compatibility is not only preserved in old texts and rhymes — it appears to leave a measurable trace in China’s marriage market today. Economists Lingwei Wu (Fudan University) and Danyan Zha (Shanghai University of Finance and Economics) published “Traditional beliefs matter in the marriage market: Evidence from zodiac compatibility in China” in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 246 (2026), 107539. Using China’s population census data, they found that couples in the traditionally “bad” zodiac compatibility category had observed marital frequencies 5.6% lower than couples with a “neutral” pairing, a statistically significant gap; couples in the “good” category had observed marital frequencies only 0.8% higher, not a statistically significant difference.
The paper’s own methodology, set out in its public prepublication manuscript, defines “bad” compatibility as a combined category covering Six Harms (相害), Six Conflicts (相冲), the Punishment rules (相刑, including self-punishment), and certain folkloric zodiac-matching sayings together — not Six Harms in isolation, and this page’s Six Harms pairs are only one part of what the study measures. That manuscript’s compatibility matrix gives the specific classification of each zodiac pair behind the two headline figures.
The researchers’ own reading matches this page’s stance throughout: the gap is not evidence that any individual zodiac pairing actually helps or harms a marriage. It is evidence that the belief shapes real decisions — the published version reports stronger effects among older cohorts, the Han ethnic group, and regions with shorter cultural distance to the zodiac tradition and stronger histories of arranged marriage, patterns the authors read as tracking the strength of belief in the zodiac system rather than any real compatibility effect. (The authors’ public prepublication manuscript also reports stronger effects among less-educated groups; this page follows the published journal version for the main heterogeneity result.)
Six Harms vs Three Harmonies vs Six Harmonies vs Six Conflicts
| Pattern | Chinese | Structure | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Three Harmonies | 三合 · Sān Hé | Four groups of three signs | Shared rhythm, group support, similar direction. |
| Six Harmonies | 六合 · Liù Hé | Six one-to-one pairs | Complementary pairing, quieter cooperation. |
| Six Conflicts | 六冲 · Liù Chōng | Six opposite pairs | Direct contrast, friction, or opposing priorities. |
| Six Harms | 六害 · Liù Hài | Six one-to-one pairs | A separate traditional “harm” or obstruction relationship; not the same rule as Six Conflicts, and the source text does not rank it as simply milder. |
Six Harms and Six Harmonies both group the twelve animals into six one-to-one pairs, but by a different rule. Six Harmonies pairs are fixed “secret friend” partners. In Sanming Tonghui, the Six Harms are explained through the interaction of Six Harmony and Six Conflict relationships: the text notes that Rat clashes with Horse under Six Conflicts, while Goat combines with Horse under Six Harmonies — and it is this overlap that the source gives as producing the Rat–Goat harm relationship. A sign’s Six Harms partner is never the same animal as its Six Harmonies partner. See the Three Harmonies, Six Harmonies, and Six Conflicts pages for the other three.
In modern compatibility shorthand, Six Harms is sometimes described as background or indirect friction, distinct from the outright clash of Six Conflicts. That framing comes from contemporary practitioner usage, not from Sanming Tonghui itself — the classical text’s own language for Six Harms (such as 为害尤甚, “the harm is especially severe,” and 凡六害入命,大率主妨害孤独, describing it as bringing obstruction and isolation) is not notably softer than its language for other adverse relationships.
Confirm the sign first
None of these four categories is useful if the underlying zodiac sign is wrong, and a sign taken from a calendar year alone can be wrong for people born in the first weeks of the year — the Chinese zodiac year turns over on a date other than January 1. For ordinary zodiac-animal lookup, the year changes at Lunar New Year. Formal BaZi practice commonly uses Lìchūn (Start of Spring) for the year-pillar boundary instead, so it matters which convention is being used.
Use the Chinese Zodiac Calculator or Chinese Zodiac Years Chart before comparing Six Harms pairs.
Common mistakes
- Treating Six Harms as a prediction of real-life conflict. It is a classical branch-relationship label, not a verdict on two actual people.
- Confusing Six Harms with Six Conflicts. Six Conflicts pairs sit directly opposite each other on the twelve-branch cycle; Six Harms pairs are a separate category, explained in the source through the interaction of Six Harmony and Six Conflict relationships rather than a simple opposite-position rule.
- Assuming every pair shares one mechanism. The source explains the six pairs through four distinct framings — one pair where both branches are vigorous yet the relationship still has a direction (Goat’s earth harming Rat’s water), a vigorous branch overwhelming a weakened one, two branches sharing the same strong 临官 stage, and one reversed case (Rooster–Dog) where a weakened branch harms a vigorous one — not a single rule repeated six times.
- Skipping the zodiac year boundary. January and February birthdays can produce the wrong animal if the boundary is ignored.
- Using the pairing as relationship advice. The result is cultural and historical context, not marriage, dating, medical, or financial guidance.
Want to check this for your own signs?
The six Six Harms pairs above are explained as a general system. Two things go further if it’s your own sign — or you and a partner’s signs — you want read specifically:
FAQ
What is Six Harms (六害) in the Chinese zodiac?
It is one of the named Earthly Branch relationship categories in Chinese fate calculation: six one-to-one pairs — Rat–Goat, Ox–Horse, Tiger–Snake, Rabbit–Dragon, Monkey–Pig, and Rooster–Dog. The classical source treats it as a separate type of adverse relationship, not simply a milder version of Six Conflicts.
What text is Six Harms sourced from?
The Ming-dynasty Sanming Tonghui (三命通会), compiled by Wan Min-ying, in its 论六害 (“On the Six Harms”) chapter.
Is Six Harms the same as Six Conflicts?
No. Six Conflicts pairs the six directly opposite signs on the twelve-branch cycle. Six Harms is a separate category with its own six pairs, none of which match the Six Conflicts pairs; the source explains Six Harms through the interaction of Six Harmony and Six Conflict relationships rather than a simple opposite-position rule.
Does every Six Harms pair work the same way?
No. The classical source explains the six pairs through four different framings: one pair (Rat–Goat) has both branches described as vigorous, yet the source still gives it a direction (Goat’s earth harming Rat’s water); two pairs (Ox–Horse, Rabbit–Dragon) follow a vigorous-overwhelms-weakened pattern; two pairs (Tiger–Snake, Monkey–Pig) share the same strong 临官 stage; and one pair (Rooster–Dog) reverses the vigorous-over-weak pattern, with the weaker branch said to cause the harm.
Are Six Harms pairs bad matches?
The classical text frames them as an adverse branch relationship, not as a fixed outcome. How two real people get along depends on far more than one branch relationship.
Where should I start if I do not know my sign?
Start with the Chinese Zodiac Calculator or the Zodiac Years Chart.
Next steps
Editorial note
This page explains Six Harms (六害) as a classical Chinese zodiac and Earthly Branch relationship category, sourced to the Ming-dynasty Sanming Tonghui (三命通会) by Wan Min-ying, via its 论六害 chapter — cross-checked against two independent transcriptions of the same chapter. The Eastern Han passages on zodiac animals and Five-Element dominance, including Wang Chong’s rhetorical-question rebuttal and his separate 偶会 chapter argument about spousal death, are quoted from his Lunheng (论衡), via the full text hosted by Wikisource and cross-checked against independent quotations of the same passages. The folk marriage-matching rhyme is a widely recorded piece of oral folklore with several circulating wordings; the version quoted here is cross-checked against multiple independently published transcriptions, including one hosted by Sina, and the “龙兔泪交流” wording is drawn from a separately recorded version. The Rabbit–Dragon “incompatibility” label discussed during matchmaking is a widely documented piece of Chinese folk marriage-matching practice, independent of any single source. The 2026 marriage-market study is Lingwei Wu and Danyan Zha, “Traditional beliefs matter in the marriage market: Evidence from zodiac compatibility in China,” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 246 (2026), 107539 (DOI linked above); its 5.6%/0.8% figures and its combined definition of “bad” compatibility (Six Harms, Six Conflicts, Punishments, and folkloric sayings together) are confirmed directly from the authors’ own public prepublication manuscript, hosted by co-author Danyan Zha. Quoted phrases are presented as what those sources say, not as a verified mechanism. Compatibility notes on The Zodiac Lore are cultural and educational references, not relationship, marriage, medical, financial, legal, or life-decision advice.