Male and Female

> In Nigeria, a new union representing some 20,000 professionals has asked the government for protection against unfair competition from amateurs. The union speaks for those "ladies of the twilight" whose business has been hurt lately by some 10,000 part-time prostitutes. Inflation has caused the influx of amateurs; as a result of soaring prices (in both cash and cattle) for brides, Nigerian men are delaying marriage, and girls who might otherwise have been supported by husbands now take to the streets when they need money. Although prostitution is illegal in Nigeria, leaders of the union have hired a lawyer to press their case, and their president-elect, a high school dropout of 26, is taking a hard line. "We have rights," she says, "and we will go to any lengths to exercise them."

> When the wife of Mathematician Stephen Wiesenfeld, 29, died in childbirth last year and left him with a son, Wiesenfeld concluded that he deserved help as much as any widow. But New Jersey authorities turned down his application for "mother's insurance benefits" under the Social Security Act. Suing on Wiesenfeld's behalf in U.S. District Court, the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union complained that benefits are being denied him only because he is a father and a widower, instead of a mother and a widow. Therefore, the suit alleges, he is being deprived of due process and equal protection under the Constitution.

> In a series of lectures across the U.S., Uppsala University Professor Karin Westman Berg is challenging the popular view of young Swedes as symbols of sexual liberty, if not license. In studies of Swedish sexuality, she has found that most Uppsala students believe that a couple ought to know each other from five to seven months before having sex. Among Swedes, she says, 80% of the males and 90% of the females consider fidelity "absolutely essential" in marriage. Westman Berg acknowledges that marriage is under attack in her country and that a fifth of all Swedish babies are born to unmarried parents. Nevertheless, she points out, 80% of unwed Swedish mothers later decide to get married.

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