Refrains about financial hardship are ubiquitous in contemporary Nigeria, frequently expressed through the idiom "to be a man is not a one-day job." But while men talk constantly about money, underlying their economic worries are broader concerns about the shifting meanings of masculinity, amid changing expectations and practices of intimacy.

Drawing on twenty-five years of experience in southeastern Nigeria, Daniel Jordan Smith takes readers through the principal phases and arenas of men's lives: the transition to adulthood; searching for work and making a living; courtship, marriage,...

Refrains about financial hardship are ubiquitous in contemporary Nigeria, frequently expressed through the idiom "to be a man is not a one-day job." But while men talk constantly about money, underlying their economic worries are broader concerns about the shifting meanings of masculinity, amid changing expectations and practices of intimacy.

Drawing on twenty-five years of experience in southeastern Nigeria, Daniel Jordan Smith takes readers through the principal phases and arenas of men's lives: the transition to adulthood; searching for work and making a living; courtship, marriage,...