The jougs are simple in form, consisting of an iron ring or collar, with a joint or hinge at the back to permit its being opened and closed, and in the front are loops for the affixing of a padlock to secure it round the neck of the culprit.
The "Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, from A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1563" (published by the Camden Society in 1848), contains the following note on the use of the jougs: "The 30th day of June, 1553," it is stated, "was set a post hard by the Standard in Cheap, and a young fellow tied to the post with a collar of iron about his neck, and another to the post with a chain, and two men with two whips whipping them about the post, for pretended visions and opprobrious and seditious words." We have modernised the spelling of Machyn.
Disregarding parental authority in Scotland was frequently the cause of young folk being punished by the jougs, and in other ways. Harsh rules of life were by no means confined to North Britain. In Tudor England manners were severe and formal, parents exacting abject deference from their offspring. A child did not presume to speak or sit down without leave in presence of its parents. A little leniency was extended to girls, for when tired they might kneel on cushions at the far end of the room; but boys were expected to stand with their heads uncovered. It is to be feared that true domestic bliss was almost unknown in olden times. Teachers were equally tyrannical, and it is a matter of history that Roger Ascham, the tutor of Queen Elizabeth, used to "pinch, nip, and bob [slap] the princess when she displeased him."
Some very curious facts relating to this subject appear in the old Kirk-Session records. "David Leyes, who struck his father," was, by a Kirk-Session of St. Andrews, in 1574, sentenced to appear before the congregation "bairheddit and beirfuttit, upon the highest degree of the penitent stuool, with a hammer in the ane hand and ane stane in the uther hand, as the twa instruments he mannesit his father,--with ane papir writin in great letteris about his heid with these wordis, 'Behold the onnaturall Son, punished for putting hand on his father, and dishonouring of God in him.'" Nor was this deemed sufficient humiliation, for the offender was afterwards made to stand at the market cross two hours "in the jaggs, and thereafter cartit through the haill toun." It was also resolved that "if ever he offended father or mother heireafter, the member of his body quhairby he offendit sal be cuttit off from him, be it tung, hand or futt without mercy, as examples to utheris to abstein fra the lyke." At Glasgow, in the year 1598, the Presbytery carefully considered the conduct of a youth who had passed his father "without lifting his bonnet."