The Political Economy of Modern Love in Nigeria: How Power, Money and Markets Shape Breakups

The personal is political, and deeply economic. Nowhere is this more evident than in the dissolution of intimate relationships, where decisions that feel purely emotional are actually shaped by complex webs of power, incentives, and institutional constraints. While breakups are typically relegated to the domains of psychology and self-help, they deserve serious analysis through the lens of political economy.

In Nigeria, where the saying "love no dey pay bill" captures a fundamental truth about relationships, this analysis becomes even more urgent. Young Nigerians navigate breakups within a context of economic uncertainty, family pressure, and changing gender dynamics that make Western models of relationship dissolution inadequate for understanding local realities.

Using examples from Nigeria's Zikoko Ships blog, this essay argues that understanding breakups requires moving beyond individual pathology toward structural analysis. Whether examining couples who marry quickly to navigate religious constraints, women socialized never to ask for money creating relationship tension, or financial exploitation masked as romantic investment, Nigerian relationship stories reveal how institutional forces shape intimate outcomes in ways that individual psychology cannot explain.

Political economy examines how political and economic forces interact to influence behavior, distribution, and outcomes. It reveals that breakups, like state exits from unions or firms terminating contracts, are fundamentally acts of realignment and renegotiation under conditions of uncertainty, information asymmetry, and shifting power dynamics.

This essay is my attempt to show that understanding breakups requires moving beyond individual pathology toward structural analysis. Drawing on economic theory, game theory, and feminist political economy, I explore why relationships end and what this reveals about the institutional frameworks that govern modern intimacy.

The Economic Foundation: Beyond Becker's Rational Family

Gary Becker's Treatise on the Family (1981) revolutionized how we think about intimate relationships by applying economic logic to marriage and divorce. In Becker's model, individuals enter and exit relationships based on utility maximization: people stay when the joint gains from partnership exceed their outside options, and leave when those calculations reverse.

This framework usefully rationalizes family formation and dissolution, treating them as economic decisions rather than mysterious emotional events. Becker showed that divorce rates respond predictably to changes in women's wages, legal costs of separation, and the availability of welfare support—insights that have held up remarkably well empirically.

Yet Becker's approach has crucial limitations. It assumes perfect information about partners and alternatives, downplays the role of emotions and identity, and treats power asymmetries as mere preference differences. Most problematically, it obscures how structural conditions—gender norms, legal institutions, economic inequality—shape who can leave relationships, when, and at what cost.

In the Nigerian context, these limitations become even more apparent. As one married Nigerian man reflected, "If I could go back, I'd wait till I was super rich" before marrying, highlighting how economic anxiety shapes relationship decisions in ways Becker's model cannot capture. The fear of poverty, particularly acute in Nigeria's challenging economic environment, creates relationship dynamics that purely utility-based models miss entirely.

Modern relationship dissolution requires a more sophisticated framework that accounts for strategic interaction, institutional constraints, and power dynamics. This is where game theory and political economy become essential.

Strategic Separation: The Coordination Problem of Love

Conan Mukherjee's 2019 model of relationship dissolution offers a crucial advance by treating breakups as strategic outcomes of intertemporal conflict. His key insight: even couples who would benefit from staying together may preemptively separate because each fears the other will quit first.

This creates a coordination failure reminiscent of the prisoner's dilemma. When both partners are uncertain about the other's commitment and have reasonable outside options, rational self-interest can lead to mutually destructive outcomes. The relationship dies not from incompatibility but from strategic mistrust.

Mukherjee's model reveals a counterintuitive paradox: relationships between equals can be less stable than those between unequals. When partners have symmetric bargaining power and equivalent alternatives, neither is willing to signal vulnerability through unilateral concessions. This mutual inflexibility increases the probability of separation.

Conversely, relationships marked by power asymmetry—where one partner consistently yields—may endure longer, but at the cost of equity and mutual respect. The stability comes from clarity about who holds veto power, but this clarity depends on ongoing subordination.

This analysis helps explain why some of the most passionate and intellectually matched couples struggle with instability, while relationships that appear less "equal" on paper demonstrate remarkable durability. It's not about the quality of love, but about the strategic structure of the relationship.

Nigerian relationship dynamics offer compelling evidence for this theory. Consider the experience of Nuel, a young Nigerian entrepreneur who had to "cut off some friends to save our relationship" when his partner Princess expressed discomfort with his boundary-setting. His willingness to sacrifice long-standing friendships represented a strategic concession that signaled commitment and reduced relationship uncertainty. The relationship survived not because of better communication, but because one partner was willing to make costly signals of dedication.

Institutional Design: Why Friction Can Save Love

One of Mukherjee's most provocative findings concerns mandatory legal separation periods—waiting periods required before divorce can be finalized, common in countries like India, Sweden, and Italy. Conventional wisdom suggests these delays simply prolong suffering, but Mukherjee shows they can actually stabilize relationships by interrupting cycles of strategic fear.

From an institutional design perspective, this makes perfect sense. Political systems routinely incorporate delay mechanisms to prevent rash decisions: legislative cooling-off periods, judicial review processes, constitutional amendment procedures. These frictions protect against the tyranny of temporary majorities or momentary passions.

In relationships, forced waiting periods serve similar functions. They provide time for emotions to cool, for new information to emerge, and for the costs of separation to become concrete rather than abstract. Most importantly, they break the strategic logic that drives preemptive breakups: if neither partner can exit immediately, the incentive to quit first disappears.

Nigerian traditional marriage customs intuitively understood this principle. Extended engagement periods, family involvement in conflict resolution, and elaborate wedding ceremonies that create reputational stakes all serve as institutional friction that stabilizes relationships. When Princess and Nuel faced housing challenges near their first wedding anniversary, they found that sleeping on a mattress in the living room after selling their furniture actually "helped us find our way back to each other." The shared hardship, rather than being a relationship stressor, became an opportunity for bonding precisely because exit was institutionally difficult.

This suggests that relationship stability isn't just about compatibility or communication skills—it's about institutional architecture. Relationships embedded in communities, legal frameworks, and social expectations that make exit costly are more likely to survive temporary crises.

The policy implication is striking: societies serious about relationship stability might consider strengthening the institutional supports around partnership rather than simply making divorce easier.

Gender, Power, and the Double-Edged Sword of Equality

The relationship between gender equality and relationship stability presents a fascinating puzzle for political economy. Empirical research consistently shows that women's economic independence increases divorce probability (Sayer & Bianchi, 2000; White, 1990). The mechanism is straightforward: when women have independent income and assets, they can afford to leave unsatisfying or abusive relationships.

This represents enormous social progress. Economic dependence trapped generations of women in relationships that ranged from merely unfulfilling to actively dangerous. The ability to exit is fundamental to voice—in relationships as in politics.

But greater equality also introduces new fragilities. When both partners have equivalent economic power and social status, the strategic dynamics identified by Mukherjee become more pronounced. Neither partner has clear authority to resolve disputes, neither is willing to consistently defer, and both have credible threats to leave.

The Nigerian experience illustrates this tension vividly. Jeffrey, a 29-year-old married man, designed an elaborate spreadsheet to divide marital responsibilities equally between himself and his wife. "I had everything: finances, chores, weekly tasks, even sex. I divided the load as fairly as possible," he explained. But he soon discovered that "marriage doesn't follow any structure, no matter how detailed your plan is." The pursuit of perfect equality created new forms of scorekeeping and resentment that threatened the relationship's stability.

This tension between equality and stability appears across multiple Nigerian narratives. Women increasingly expect partnership rather than provision, but economic realities make true equality difficult to achieve. As one person noted about their partner, "He loves me just the way I am" and "gives me room to grow," suggesting that successful relationships may require asymmetric accommodation rather than rigid equality.

The challenge is institutional: how do we design social and legal frameworks that support stable egalitarian relationships? This might require new forms of conflict resolution, different approaches to property and custody, and cultural scripts that valorize compromise without stigmatizing it as weakness.

The Precarity of Informal Unions

Mukherjee's analysis also illuminates why legal marriage remains more stable than informal cohabitation, despite widespread cultural shifts toward more flexible partnership arrangements. The difference isn't primarily about commitment or values—it's about institutional support.

Legal marriage comes with built-in stabilizing mechanisms: shared property rights that make exit costly, dispute resolution procedures that provide alternatives to separation, mandatory waiting periods that slow impulsive decisions, and social recognition that creates reputational stakes. These institutions don't guarantee happiness, but they do make relationships more robust to temporary shocks.

Informal relationships, by contrast, operate in an institutional vacuum. They're easier to enter and exit, which sounds liberating but actually creates strategic instability. When exit costs are minimal, the threshold for leaving drops dramatically. Partners may abandon relationships that could have been repaired simply because departure requires no institutional negotiation.

Nigerian relationship patterns reflect this institutional reality. The elaborate process of traditional marriage, from introduction ceremonies to bride price negotiations, creates multiple stakeholders invested in relationship success. When Ugochukwu's wife began secretly sending money to his parents early in their relationship, she was building institutional support that made exit costly for both parties. "She has taken over my parents," he observed, "and I love it because they don't have a daughter. She's filled that role so well that I believe if I ever hurt her, my parents would kill me."

This strategic family integration represents sophisticated institutional design for relationship stability. By creating cross-cutting loyalties and multiple points of intervention, traditional systems made relationship dissolution a collective rather than individual decision.

This analysis suggests that the decline of marriage isn't just about changing values—it's about the erosion of institutional supports for long-term partnership. If societies want stable relationships, they need institutions that support them, whether those take the form of traditional marriage or new legal frameworks for committed partnership.

Digital Disruption: Love in the Age of Infinite Options

Contemporary relationship instability can't be understood without examining how digital technologies have transformed the political economy of intimacy. Dating apps, social media, and geographic mobility have fundamentally altered the incentive structures governing romantic partnership.

From an economic perspective, these technologies have dramatically reduced search and switching costs while exponentially expanding the visible universe of alternatives. When Tinder puts thousands of potential partners at your fingertips, the opportunity cost of staying in any particular relationship rises substantially.

This mirrors dynamics in other markets characterized by low switching costs and high visibility of alternatives—think streaming services or gig economy platforms. In such environments, loyalty becomes economically irrational, and providers must constantly compete for retention rather than assuming customer stability.

Nigerian youth culture exemplifies these pressures intensely. In Lagos, where social media presence often matters as much as real-life compatibility, relationships must survive constant comparison and visibility. The temptation to "upgrade" becomes systematic when Instagram provides an endless catalog of alternatives and success stories. When Ifeoluwa's UK-based partner surprised him with ewa agoyin delivery after a casual tweet, the gesture succeeded precisely because it cut through digital noise with tangible, location-specific care.

Social media compounds these effects by creating new forms of relationship transparency and comparison. Platforms like Instagram don't just facilitate partner search, they reshape how we experience and evaluate our existing relationships. The carefully curated happiness of others becomes a constant benchmark against which our own partnerships are measured.

Moreover, breakups themselves have become semi-public performances on social media platforms. The strategic calculations around unfollowing, archiving photos, or crafting subtle subtweets add layers of reputational complexity to relationship dissolution. Partners must now consider not just the emotional and financial costs of separation, but the social and professional spillovers of public uncoupling.

These platforms function as micro-institutions with their own norms, incentives, and visibility regimes—all of which rewire how modern intimacy unfolds and unravels. They've created what we might call "relationship surveillance capitalism," where intimate decisions become data points and emotional labor becomes content.

Policy Implications: Designing Institutions for Modern Love

If breakups are shaped by institutional frameworks rather than just individual psychology, then relationship stability becomes a design problem amenable to policy intervention. Several possibilities emerge from this analysis:

Legal Innovation: Countries might experiment with new forms of partnership recognition that provide institutional support without the historical baggage of marriage. These could include graduated commitment frameworks, mandatory mediation requirements, or cooling-off periods for relationship dissolution.

Digital Governance: Platforms could be regulated to reduce the commodification of intimacy—perhaps through advertising restrictions, algorithmic transparency requirements, or user privacy protections that limit relationship surveillance.

Economic Policy: Broader economic security reduces the strategic pressures on relationships. Universal basic income, affordable housing, and accessible childcare make it possible for people to make relationship decisions based on compatibility rather than economic necessity.

In the Nigerian context, this is particularly relevant. Jeffrey's marriage was nearly derailed when job loss made him feel like "every contribution I had to make felt like it was dragging me closer to the poverty line." Economic instability forces couples into survival mode where love becomes secondary to resource management. Policies that provide economic security, from unemployment insurance to affordable housing, would allow more couples to focus on emotional compatibility rather than financial strategy.

Cultural Institutions: Communities might develop new rituals and practices that support relationship maintenance, not through moral pressure, but through practical support and conflict resolution resources.

Nigerian churches and mosques already serve this function informally, but could become more systematic about relationship support. When Susan found her future husband's prayer journal documenting "over 100 confessions" about his future wife, she was seeing evidence of institutional support for intentional relationship building. Communities that normalize such practices, create space for pre-marital counseling, and offer ongoing conflict resolution create better conditions for relationship success.

Conclusion: Structure and Agency in Love's Political Economy

Political economy reveals that breakups are never purely personal decisions. They emerge from the interaction of individual preferences with institutional constraints, power dynamics, and economic incentives. Love exists within systems, and when those systems change, so does the nature of our most intimate connections.

This perspective doesn't diminish the reality of heartbreak or the importance of compatibility, communication, and emotional intelligence in relationships. Instead, it provides a more complete picture of why relationships succeed or fail by examining the structural conditions that make different outcomes more or less likely.

Understanding the political economy of breakups offers hope for more intentional relationship design, both at the individual level and societally. If we can see how institutions shape intimate outcomes, we can work to build better institutions. The goal isn't to prevent all breakups, but to ensure that relationships end for good reasons rather than structural failures.

Nigerian relationship stories suggest that success often comes from understanding these structural dynamics intuitively. When Damisi reflected, "I just knew in my heart that I would always love this person. In every life, I'll find her, and she'll fit me perfectly," he was describing not just emotional connection but institutional fit. When Busayo realized she loved her partner while answering his parents' questions, she was participating in traditional mechanisms for relationship validation that reduce uncertainty and build stakeholder investment.

In an era of rapid social change, economic uncertainty, and technological disruption, this kind of institutional thinking about intimacy becomes essential. The personal may be political, but politics can also be personal, and that opens space for collective action to create conditions where love, in all its forms, can flourish.

---

References:

Becker, G. S. (1981). A Treatise on the Family. Harvard University Press.

Mukherjee, C. (2019). "On Fights and Break-ups Between Couples." Studies in Microeconomics, 7(2), 227–237.

Sayer, L. C., & Bianchi, S. M. (2000). "Women's Economic Independence and the Probability of Divorce." Journal of Family Issues, 21(7), 906–943.

White, L. K. (1990). "Determinants of Divorce: A Review of Research in the Eighties." Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52(4), 904–912.