Divorce before marriage in the Singapore-Malaysia relationship: the Invariance Principle at work

This article looks at how a particular metaphor, the Marriage metaphor, is used in the discourse concerning the Singapore-Malaysia relationship by tra cking the metaphor through discourses concerning political merger, separati on and possible re-merger. It shows how the details of the metaphor may be differentially mapped in order to achieve competing political alms. The art icle also observes that while the Marriage metaphor was productively used I n the post-separation discourse, there is no evidence that it was used prio r to this period. An explanation for this absence is offered in terms of th e Invariance Principle.