To think women should prioritise being equally yoked when choosing a partner?

[ThisLimeMoose]

As a woman, I firmly believe that if you don’t have children, you should prioritise dating a man who doesn’t have children. If you’re financially stable, you should be looking for a man who is equally financially stable. The same applies to emotional maturity, ambition, lifestyle and general circumstances.

I think far too many women enter relationships where they’re taking on responsibilities, complications or burdens that they wouldn’t otherwise have, simply because they’ve been encouraged to believe that love should be enough. Stay equally yoked in all things and I genuinely believe you’d avoid a significant proportion of the relationship problems we regularly see discussed on here.

AIBU?

I think I’d rather be the farmer than than farm animal

Why couldn't you say that then? It can't be that well established if so many people have reacted to it.

The thought police are out in full force today.

Who determines a word or expression can only be used by a certain group of people?

Just replace the word yoked with matched, everyone.

It's a clunky phrase but I totally get what the OP is getting at.

You stand a better chance of a successful relationship if you choose to be with someone who is on the same page as you in regards to attitude to money, having children, lifestyle, crime, travel, life goals. All the big stuff which can cause huge issues if you are the sort of person who works full time and saves money, and you are living with someone who can't keep a job and never has any cash.

The phrase "equally yoked" comes from 2 Corinthians 6:14 in the New Testament, where the Apostle Paul writes: "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers" (or "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers"in the King James Version) (taken from Google but I’ve checked the quote).

It very much relates religion and not engaging with ‘unbelievers’ and that is how it is used today by the religious fundamentalists who use it regularly.

It comes from using a double yoke on two animals of equal ability and strength.

My DH are so happily unyoked even after 30 plus year of happy marriage we are practically scrambled eggs.

Tbh it sounds more like an isolated fundamentalist Christian cult has just discovered technology and is trying to spread the word, but fucked up by not realising that the vernacular isn't the same in the outside world.

Is it Christian nationalist? The only people I've ever seen say it are black Americans.

That said, I think the point is more interesting than the phrasing. And for me the answer is, it depends. I met DH quite young so we weren't thinking much about this kind of thing, although arguably we were equally yoked then since our net worths (fuck all) were identical. If I were to find myself single now, and given that I've got DC, I'd have to think a lot more practically rather than just this one is funny, nice and there's physical chemistry.

A bit yes, a bit no.
It's hard to work together if one parent values sitting at the kitchen table and listening to their 7 years old about school playground drama between kids and who said what to whom, that someone stole a pin with a pretty head from display board, for an hour or more, every day. Not even forcefully turning conversation to 'academic' stuff. In all that time learning that they started counting in 6ths and got the kid to 'explain' 😉 what he means. Not even doing anything else 'useful' in the kitchen. Just sitting at the table.
Other parent insists the child must do an instrument to have a better chance to get to a particular school later on. And drama. And a sport. And something else. That would be hard.
Outlook on life, what's important to each would matter to me, how they relate with other people matters to me. Character matters. Beliefs matter.
Current financial situation less so. Formal education less so. General circumstances less so.

I would love to date a hedgehog. Although they can be prickly at first.

Yes. Love is not enough. Women are sold the idea that it is.

Even taken in the religious sense I think this is good advice (and I’m an atheist).

If my wife believed that our children’s souls would be deprived from god for all eternity unless they did X, Y, Z, then that should be the top priority over everything else.

How would it not be?

If I thought my children were about to run out in front of a truck it would be psychopathic to treat that as just one priority to be weighed up against others, agree to split the difference from time to time. Maybe we let them run in front of the truck every alternate week.

Its a an agricultural term. If your horses weren't equally yoked (the yoke is the bit that attached the horses to plough) the plough verges off to the side.

Well, I prefer an equal partnership based on live and free choice, rather than anyone being yoked to anyone. It's a weird way to see relationships.

I've never heard of this phrase and considered myself pretty well read and educated! Guess not!

Anyway, I don't believe love is a choice. If it was, my partner wouldn't be thousands of miles away. I'm not sure if we're equally 'yoked'. He has a good job and I make tiny amounts doing this and that but I do have more money saved and completely own my own house so maybe it equals out.

I believe love can definitely be a choice. I would choose not to get yoked to Russell Brand, for instance.
But more seriously, when dating I would only date men as equally educated and ambitious- not rich- as myself. People can call that snobby but it's worked out.

People are having a fit because she used a term that is known in Christianity....I'm sure if it was any other belief system..they wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

It’s not that weird, especially with children. You take on a lot of responsibilities to them and others. I think it would be odd to want to do that with someone who saw it as a ‘live and free choice’ whether to fulfil those.

I find it a fairly normal turn of phrase (though I wasn't aware of the current connotations so grateful to Kate for sharing those).
We do need people to use expressions that aren't in our own vocabularies if we want to keep learning new words throughout our lives, though, so it's strange to attack people for using an unfamiliar word.

The ironic thing is that this phrase is used by most people who use it (the said religious fundamentalists) only in regard to religion. The expectation is that there will be a ‘provider’ husband and SAHM wife (so unequal financially, educationally and in the role in the marriage). Think tradwives (and yes, I know that influencing as a trad wife is a job but that’s not what the women in question claim).

Its cringe speak

If you want to be taken seriously, use English seriously 😉

It wasn’t that the word was unfamiliar

it’s just I have never heard it used about humans in a positive context - the meaning is very different to the one I have come across. It implies enforced work.

that may be because words do evolve especially in different locations

but the careful use of words can be used to influence and manipulate people. Because Words play to emotions.

Probably more important to prioritise decency and shared goals, values and attitudes. If you have that you can work through circumstantial differences.

I agree, I love learning new words and watching language evolve.