YOKE

 With origin in the Latin iugum, yoke is a term that allows to identify the instrument made of wood where mules or oxen are tied to form a team. The device for directing the plow or the cart pole is attached to it. By extension, it is usually described as a yoke to heavy work or effort, to loads or ties, while the notion of yunta is also used to name animals or people who work together.

Regarding the yoke as an instrument, it is possible to distinguish between the sobeo or center (the central and straight part), the tables (the prominences for the straps) and the camels or gamellas (the curved parts). They are attached to the plow through the barzon, as the ring is known from which a dowel protrudes that keeps it firm on the inner side of the plow lance. This bark, meanwhile, is tied to the yoke by means of a strap. It is worth mentioning that there are some longer ones (they are used when the animal must drag a cart or heavy load) and other shorter ones (suitable for plowing tasks).

As a synonym for arduous and difficult task or binding, the yoke is used in various ways in everyday language. For example: "I want to retire to leave behind the yoke of this job" , "All of life is the same: more and more yoke until the body no longer holds" , "The yoke of the mortgage is becoming too heavy for the economy familiar ” .

Yugo is also the veil that was applied to the bride and groom during the vigil mass, the component found on the neck of a cathode ray tube, the curved heel that is located on the sternum of a ship and a brand of automobiles from Yugoslav manufacture.

The Yugo, an instrument of domination

In the religious framework there is the concept of unequal yoke to refer to those links that are made between a Catholic person and an agnostic or that professes another type of religion. In ecclesiastical law this marriage is frowned upon because it is considered that two people with different ideologies cannot be happy and because it is believed that a marriage where one of the two does not comply with the mandates of the church and leads a holy life is not well seen in the eyes of God.

This type of imposition leads many young people, convinced of their faith to the church, to break up with courtships in which they felt really complete just because they did not contradict said mandates, because they were not able to think for themselves and seek their own happiness. , outside the norms established by the clergy.

According to everything described and despite the different meanings of the term, in general they all share the same characteristic, it is an instrument of domination.

In the case of oxen, the human being decides how they mate and what they do and thus manages to dominate these animals; If we refer to the yoke of a ship, it is the one that allows to maintain control over it and in this last sense, with regard to the marital union, it represents the domination of an ideology over the freedom of individuals.

The church determines which unions are recommended and those that take place outside the rules set by it are frowned upon and criticized. Likewise, in many cases the concept in marriage can also refer to a bond that deprives both grooms of many rights and makes them dominated and sold by their own principles.