AUTHOR’S NOTE: Although morality has lost much of its grip on modern romance, I still prefer the older definition of the Lovers card as being presented with a decision that has ethical implications. The Tarot de Marseille “Lover” makes this abundantly clear.

I almost always read the Lovers as a “crossroads” from which the seeker can take either the “high road” toward the Star or the “low road” toward the Devil, although the presence of the angel appears to be urging the former. However, when the card is reversed with the angel at the bottom, I anticipate underhanded tampering that can spell trouble for the integrity of the human participants. It would most likely show an external, possibly jealous, “interested party” whose agenda is focused on disrupting (aka “pulling the rug out from under”) the liaison. In a non-romantic relationship it can amount to imposition of onerous conditions that complicate the decision and potentially make its consequences less appealing.

When it is upside-down, there is a common tendency to treat the Lovers as implying a “falling out of love” or a warning not to engage in the first place, but I’m intrigued by the idea that it is assisted by more nefarious intentions that are, in the words of Benebell Wen, aimed at “planting seeds of doubt in the seeker.” If we place the Devil to the right of the reversed Lovers, the inverted angel almost looks like the “agent” of the Devil luring the pair down to its infernal abode.

The Lovers came up reversed followed by the reversed 2 of Swords in a recent reading I did for a friend, inspiring me to write this essay. She is contemplating involvement as a volunteer in the “caring and helping” profession and wanted to know how that might go for her. I cautioned her that the well-established outreach community in which she may find herself immersed could place demands on her that will require more of her than she is willing to give, particularly since other cards in the spread showed her innocently envisioning “sweetness and light” when in fact the working environment may be “all business.” The advice was to set boundaries and guard against over-commitment, while the reversed 2 of Swords brought it down to deciding whether she can tolerate the strain on her daily routine.

This notion of “allurement” has a lot of potential for crafting a more nuanced approach to the Lovers. It’s not exactly the temptation of the Serpent with its religious overtones, more a manipulative intervention that has no purpose other than making mischief by redirecting the high-minded ethical current down a less agreeable path. It seems that these days people don’t need an excuse to be perverse, it almost comes naturally, and the reversed Lovers offers a golden opportunity to exercise that compulsion, particularly if the querent is the “outsider” represented by the angel. If the focus is on romance, there is often a wandering partner or “ex” involved when that occurs.