The Lovers tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

The Lovers is card VI of the Major Arcana, and it is about more than romance. Under a great angel two people stand in a garden, each in front of a tree. The card asks what you are choosing, and whether your heart and your values point the same way. Here is what the Lovers means upright and reversed, the symbols in the 1909 design and how an old card about marriage became a card about choice.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: love, union, choice, shared values
• Reversed keywords: misalignment, broken trust, a choice postponed
• Number: VI (6) in the Major Arcana
• Element: Air Later tradition
• Astrology: Gemini Later tradition
• Yes or no: Yes Modern

The element and astrology come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks, and the yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use them if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

The 1909 card shows a man and a woman standing unclothed in a garden, with an angel above them in the sun, a tree of flames behind him and a fruit tree with a serpent behind her. Waite called the Lovers “in all simplicity the card of human love” and said it shows love “as part of the way, the truth and the life”.

The angel and the sun

Above the figures a great winged angel, usually read as Raphael, spreads its arms under a blazing sun. It is a blessing over the choice below. Love here is not only private. It is something you stand behind in daylight.

The two trees

Behind the man is a tree of flames, which Waite called the Tree of Life with twelve fruits. Behind the woman is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with a snake wound around it. The garden is Eden, and the theme is choice and its consequences.

The mountain

Between the two figures rises a single mountain. Many readers see it as the shared aim that a real partnership climbs toward together.

The two figures

The man looks at the woman, and the woman looks up at the angel. The order of the gazes has been read many ways, but the simple point is connection: two people turned toward each other, and toward something larger.

Upright meaning

Upright, the Lovers stands for love, union, partnership and alignment of values. Attraction matters, and so does the decision about what you will stand for together. The card can describe a relationship, a deep friendship or a business partnership.

It is also a card of important choices. In a reading, ask what you are choosing and whether both people, or both parts of yourself, agree to the same story. Love without choice is incomplete, and choice without heart is dry.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, the Lovers can show misalignment, broken trust or a choice put off until it sours. Values may be drifting apart while habit keeps you in place. The disharmony can be between two people or inside yourself.

Name the real options. Repair if both people will do the work, and separate if the values cannot meet. Avoid games that push someone else to make your decision for you.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, a strong love card: choosing each other with open eyes, commitment, a deep match. Reversed, staying while knowing that your values no longer fit.

Work and money

Aligning work with what you can stand behind, or a partnership that works. Reversed, a deal that looks good and functions poorly, or a choice between two paths that you keep avoiding.

Spirituality

Bringing love and conscience together in practice. Reversed, splitting life into sacred talk and contradictory behavior.

As feelings

As feelings, the Lovers shows strong attraction, affection and a sense of connection. The person feels chosen and wants to choose you too.

The Lovers as past, present, future and advice

• Past: A relationship or a choice that shaped who you are.
• Present: An important choice, or a connection that asks you to commit.
• Future: A meaningful relationship or decision is coming.
• Advice: Choose with your heart and your values together.

A Major Arcana card names a theme, not a sentence passed on your life. When the Lovers shows up among mostly Minor cards, give it extra weight: the theme of love runs under the whole question. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time. Patterns like that teach you more about the card than any list of keywords.

Is the Lovers a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, the Lovers leans yes. It is a card of love and good choices, so it leans yes, as long as the choice fits your values. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I choose connection that aligns with my values and my heart.

Reversed affirmation: I face misalignment honestly instead of performing unity.

Journal prompts:

• What choice am I facing, and what do my values say?
• Where do my heart and my head agree?
• What would it look like to choose this relationship, or this path, again today?

The history and art behind the card

In the Tarot de Marseille pattern the card is called L’Amoureux, the Lover. The earliest Italian cards show a couple, sometimes on their wedding day, with Cupid flying above them. On many Marseille cards a young man stands between two women, one older and one younger, while Cupid aims an arrow at him. That version is about a choice between two paths or two loves.

Waite disliked the old design. He wrote that his card replaces “the old card of marriage” and “the later follies which depicted man between vice and virtue”. Smith gave it the Eden scene, which turned the card into a picture of human love and moral choice at once. The Golden Dawn gave it Gemini, the twins, a good match for a card about two.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the card: “Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome.” Reversed, he gave: “Failure, foolish designs. Another account speaks of marriage frustrated and contrarieties of all kinds.” Waite himself called the fortune-telling meanings of the trumps “artificial and arbitrary”, and on this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

In the modern teaching map called the Fool’s Journey, this card belongs to the first stage, becoming a self (roughly the Magician to the Chariot): tools, intuition, care, structure, tradition, choice and will. This map is a teaching aid made popular by twentieth-century guidebooks such as Eden Gray’s, not a medieval doctrine. Use it when it helps.

A spread for the Lovers

Use this spread for a relationship or for any choice between two paths.

1. What draws me here? The attraction or the pull.
2. What do my values say? The test the choice has to pass.
3. What does choosing this ask of me? The commitment that comes with it.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

Does the Lovers always mean love?

No. It often means a relationship, but it can also mean an important choice or a question of values.

Is the Lovers a yes?

Usually yes, especially in love questions. Reversed, it asks you to look at what is out of balance first.

Related cards

• The Hierophant: the card before: shared values and tradition
• The Devil: the shadow of the Lovers, attachment without freedom
• The Empress: love as care and growth

Keep learning

The Lovers is part of the lesson The Fool to the Chariot in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To keep walking the Major Arcana, read the card before it, The Hierophant or the card after it, The Chariot, or go back to all the card meanings. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part II and Part III, section 3.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Eden Gray, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (New York: Crown, 1970), epilogue “The Fool’s Journey”.
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for The Lovers.