ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the marriage metaphor that is fortunate in having the run of a substantial literature on the theory of metaphor. Since the history of that literature has been more than adequately covered by, amongst others, J. M. Soskice, Galambush and Stienstra. The author proposes not to repeat their work, but to follow their examples in isolating some elements of metaphorical theory that seem most relevant to his own project. Accordingly the author shall not dwell on the one major preoccupation of many recent theorists: working in a variety of disciplines literary criticism, philosophy, linguistics and psychology. For instance they have explored issues of cognitive processes and content-status of metaphors, and not only those that that may be classed as literary figures of speech, but also the metaphorical element of scientific and everyday language. This debate has a resonance with theology; Sallie McFague and Soskice have offered important discussions on the significance of metaphorical language about God.
