The dramatic increase in literacy throughout West Africa during the first half of the 20th century precipitated a new era of cultural ideals in Nigerian society. The various print media expanded accordingly. Urban and educated people read more. They also wrote, sharing their experiences.

They expressed their new views on life, love, and relationships in Nigerian books and newspapers. These were the places where progressive Nigerians modernized love (Aderinto, 2015). West African literary love becomes more romantic in this new cultural climate.

Newspapers’ advice columns were the most interactive printed medium for urban people in southern Nigeria’s major cities to discuss their questions. Single young men and women were among the column’s primary readers, where they shared their views and expressed opinions. Advice columnists and readers both expressed their viewpoints. They discussed modern relationships, families, and love while writing the letters to editors.

“Miss Silva” Listened to Their Love Stories

For example, the Nigerian “Miss Silva” gave love advice in her column “Milady’s Bower” from 1937 until 1960. Her writings and anonymous letters from readers about modern love voiced their dramatic love stories. Those stories frequently ran into controversy with traditional African-style patriarchy and gender relations standards. So, the opportunity to speak freely without being identified was an important part of the colonial literary culture that this advice column brought to them.

Listen to What Nigerian Men and Women Said…

Let us listen to their stories…

“I could not love this man … and I still dread the idea of marrying him”

Nigerian men and women were concerned about forced betrothal and parental involvement in courtship. The freedom to choose a lover was one of the most important aspects of modern urban courtship, which was different from traditional rural culture. Some young men and women defied the “traditional” culture of betrothal by selecting a prospective bride or groom without their parents’ consent or approval. So, many letters to Miss Silva focused on the parents’ refusal to recognize a courtship. Some correspondents complained about their parents’ refusal to let them choose their own spouses.

“Dear Miss Silva, will you help me ease my present situation?”

Nigerian men and women were concerned about heartbreak, courtship, and sex. Heartbreak and romantic disappointment were also concerning issues for young women and men, in addition to parental involvement in courtship and love affairs. For them, being a modern lover meant avoiding or dealing with heartbreak maturely. The heartbreak letters and advice articles provided a deep understanding of key facets of the courtship relationship. Women and men shared their perceptions of physical appearance, interpersonal attraction, socialization, emotional attachment, ethnicity, gender, social, and educational status. They were concerned about all these and other issues that brought them together in romantic relationships.

Readers were more reserved about talking about sex and sexual relations. Is kissing in accordance with African culture? Where should men and women kiss, in private or in public? Can they show affection in public without explicit kissing? The kissing debates touched on important parts of intimacy. They discussed the thin lines between public and private displays of love. They talked about what is “decent” and what is “scandalous.”

‘Love is but a part of a man’s nature, while a woman’s whole existence breathes on it”

Gender roles and gender relations concerned Nigerian women and men when they were talking about modern love. In their writings, “Miss Silva” and her love advisers describe commonly accepted rules for modern relationships that apply to both sexes. They also explained that men and women do not love in the same way. Love is not completely genderless in their writing. The gendered nature of love is due to both biological differences between males and females and learned gender expectations in changing social and cultural contexts. Readers shared their views on modern masculinity and femininity.

“Milady’s Bower” Was a Transformational Public Cultural Club

Thus, we can see that, for Miss Silva and her correspondents, the newspaper became a public site where, on a daily basis, they could openly contemplate and publicly discuss the issues that concerned them. It was like a discussion club.

This mutual sharing of problems and the ways of life and love significantly contributed to the cultural development of new standards for what it meant to be a girl and a boy, a woman and a man, a wife and a husband, a mother and a father. All these discussions tremendously influenced what West Africans thought about the modernization of the colonial culture of love (Aderinto, 2015).