Now rare. [f. YOKE sb. + MATE sb.2] = YOKE-FELLOW.
c. 1555. Harpsfield, Divorce Hen. VIII. (Camden), 276. [She] all to beat her yokemate with a washbutte.
1581. Marbeck, Bk. Notes, 1015 [1013]. He had to his yoke mate one Helen.
1581. Hanmer, Jesuites Banner, G 4 b. Neyther may they bee ioyned as yokemates, to drawe in the vineyarde of the Church.
1684. J. S., Profit & Pleas. United, 10. Some were wont to yoke them together,… putting one of them yokemate with an Ox.
1704. Swift, T. Tub, Ep. Ded. He is a worthy yokemate to his forementioned friend.
1776. G. Campbell, Philos. Rhet., II. 296, note. Such yokemates as these, immortal mark, great captain, illustrious place.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxv. Rebecca … trying to soothe her angry yoke-mate.
1857. Gladstone, Glean. (1879), VI. 58. Inasmuch as St. Paul has declared that a Christian husband or wife married to an unbeliever is to suffer the unbelieving yoke-mate to depart.
So Yoke-mating, marriage.
1891. Meredith, One of our Conq., xiv. On some future day of a perchance miserable yokemating.
