The African continent is home to culturally diverse ethnic groups of people. This diversity can be evident in differences between countries, within countries, and from tribe to tribe within and between countries. A variety of cultural norms and practices co-exist in the proximity of territories.

Anthropological materials have revealed a variety of people’s perceptions and ideals about love. Those studies have focused on how Nigerians, Cameroonians, Kenyans, and South Africans understand love. They described different varieties and types of love, including special relationships with sex and marriage.

Sex and Love in Africa

In some African cultures, people believed that sex and sexual desire were natural and powerful drives that men and women should handle with ritual respect. Adults remarked favorably on a child’s nicely sculpted genitalia. People were not anxious, shy, or prudent about touching a child’s genitalia. At a very young age, they might kiss the boy’s or girl’s genitalia as a sign of affection.

For many Africans, the physical act of sexual intercourse itself was not associated with even a little feeling of guilt or remorse. However, the symbolic meaning and magical repercussions of sex were culturally important. Therefore, sexual initiations required a complex sequence of ceremonies and rituals.

In African societies, attitudes toward premarital sexual relationships and intercourse vary greatly across cultural groups. Some openly tolerated this possibility, while others were more restrictive to some extent. Sexual play was acceptable among youngsters. If the vagina was not penetrated during intercourse, sex play was appropriate, even if it went to orgasm (Murstein, 1974).

Were Africans Familiar with Romantic Love?

The ideas and images of romantic love have been present in African cultures in the 20th century for a long time but are strongly associated with sex. Numerous anthropological studies have documented many narratives of how people in African tribes portrayed and explained love in relationships with sex and marriage. Many of these romantic love notions and cultural features were quite different from Western European and American conceptions of romantic love. But they were present in cultural traditions, according to multiple anthropological sources (see, for example, Bell, 1995; Cole & Thomas, eds., 2009; Plotnicov, 1995; Riesman, 1973).

Since the middle of the 20th century, the topics of love, romance, and modern marriage have begun to appear in African literature, popular African periodicals, and other media. Those changes have been going on for decades (Jahoda, 1959; Obiechina, 1973).

In personal narratives, senior Africans shared anecdotes, love stories, and popular ethnic fables, illustrating a long cultural history of passionate love. In African communities, love and sexual attraction were common, but they did not fit well with daily life. Men and women frequently shared their personal experiences, admitting that if they could “follow their hearts,” they would marry someone other than their spouse (Smith, 2001).

For Africans, Romantic Love Is Culturally Specific

Romantic love for people in many African tribal groups has been largely passionate love related to sex and sexual love. The prevalent topic of African love songs and stories is sexual longing. Love for them is the yearning for sex with the loved one.

One of the key romantic features of love for Western conceptions of romantic love is the exclusivity of the beloved and the relationship with him or her. However, African cultural beliefs suggest different notions of love. For example, Audrey Richards, a British social anthropologist who studied the Bemba people of Northern Rhodesia in Africa in the 1930s, shared her interesting ethnographic observations. She once told the group of Bemba an English folk-fable about a young prince who, in pursuit of obtaining the hand of his beloved maiden, did many feats: he fought dragons, climbed glass mountains, and crossed chasms. Once the story was told, the Bemba remained silent, plainly bewildered. Finally, an old chief spoke up and voiced the feelings of all present in the simple question, “Why not take another girl?” The reaction of Bemba people to this romantic story reveals that they didn’t follow the cultural idea of exclusivity in love (Karandashev, 2019, p. 125).

Culturally Specific Features of Romantic Love among Senegalese

Here is another interesting example of this culturally specific feature of romantic love in African cultures. It comes from the survey study conducted in the 1980s on the Wolof-speaking Senegalese sample in West Africa (D’Hondt & Vandewiele, 1983).

Their answers by boys and girls to the question “Do you think that one falls in love only once in one’s lifetime?” about the uniqueness of the experience of love are especially illustrative. About 38% of adolescents agreed with this belief in the uniqueness of love, and 62% disagreed. More girls believed this than boys.

Some commented romantically that “people fall in love only once since there is room for only one love in the heart”. However, many Senegalese boys argued that “there were too many pretty girls to settle on only one for good,” indicating that broken love could be replaced or that feelings could change.

Cultural Transformations of African Societies in the Second Part of the 20th Century

Since the mid-20th century, in many African societies, significant changes and transformations have occurred in politics, cultures, and interpersonal and family relations.

Traditional love and marriage in black African villages coexisted with new love and marital relations in urban, industrialized social settings. Various regional and cultural variations have been present across African countries. Some cultural norms, practices, and customs of gender relations, sex, love, and marital relations were widespread, while others were specific to ethnic and tribal groups.