European Laxity Frustrates Youth of Algeria : Tradition: Unwed sex, freedom to choose a mate are among unknown concepts for many in Muslim nation.

The video “Dirty Dancing” worried the customs officer in Algiers almost as much as the book “Lands of the Bible,” with its outline of Israel.

Both belonged to an expatriate’s 14-year-old daughter and the customs eventually decided that they were admissible.

Less than an hour away by plane from France, Algeria’s young people are separated from the lifestyle of many of their peers in Europe by far more than the Mediterranean dividing them.

Sex before marriage, freedom to choose a husband, a right to live away from home with friends, even of the same sex, are unknown concepts for many of the 17 million Algerians under 30.

Battered by their proximity to the West, young men and women in this Muslim country live under traditional pressure to dress soberly and remain chaste--exacerbated by the undercurrent of a strong fundamentalist movement.

While local television cut too-daring scenes from “Crocodile Dundee,” from across the water flows an endless stream of sensuality, via satellite television--pirated and not so expensive as to be totally inaccessible even among the poor.

It ranges from explicit sex in magazines and films on Canal-Plus to flesh-baring ads for shampoo and the apparent open acceptance of sex before marriage.

They mark a sharp contrast from daily reality in Algiers.

“Would you accept your own daughter losing her chastity before marriage?” demanded a scandalized Nabti Djamil of an “agony aunt” who tried to console a seduced girl from the western city of Oran who despaired of being “condemned forever.”

A young woman from Hussein Dey, a fundamentalist stronghold in the capital, complained:

“To say a girl’s virginity is a ‘taboo from the past’ is to preach relaxation of morals among our young who, thank God, remain attached to our rigid principles.”

Like the girl from Oran, Nabila, from Algiers’ Kouba suburb, knows the other side of the coin. “My fiance died two months after the ‘consummation of our marriage’ but before we were married.

“My parents don’t know and I am forced to refuse all offers (of marriage). Everyone thinks I am still a virgin but I am not. I can think now (only) of death.”

Custom demands that a bride be a virgin, and failure to be able to prove this can bring rapid divorce and humiliation. Some talk even of brides being killed by their own outraged family.

But frustration with such taboos is increasingly evident. It has given birth to the rare phenomenon in a Muslim country of women advertising for partners, “preferably with accommodation.”

“Young woman, 26, would love to share with a man, 30 to 35, who can offer her a nest.” Or “Mother of five, in her 40s, made desperate by wrecked marriage, seeks man 55 to 70 . . . who can offer a home.” Write Box Number. . . .

The cries reflect a chronic shortage of housing, rather than men, especially in the capital where over a dozen people may live in two rooms.

They also illustrate the difficulties of what Westerners see as normal human relations, the problem of meeting the opposite sex when girls are carefully watched by families.

Growing numbers of men, some vaunting accommodation, now advertise their charms in the hope of making at least initial contact with women, made difficult by society’s divisions.

Crowded cafes in Algiers more resemble London’s old “men only” clubs than social meeting places with the chance of encountering a girl.

Prostitutes, who operate clandestinely despite the deep-seated taboos, illustrate the confusion produced in a society bound by religion and buffeted by sexuality.

Members of the now banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) proudly tell how these women voted for them in elections. The way they rationalized their choice was that a FIS Islamic state would forcibly end their careers, saving them from themselves.

Women’s groups--hardly ardent feminists--battle in vain against Algeria’s family code and traditions that give fathers wide power over their daughters--of any age.

A “friendship club” run by the Algerian newspaper, Le Soir d’Algerie, reflects the hidden anguish.

“I am a young woman, 44, and still unmarried. From age 20, over the years, I never stopped having suitors who came home to ask for my hand. . . .

“My parents always found a problem with the men. . . . My father forced me to leave university. . . . Men still came to the house (to ask to marry me). . . . Nothing.

“Powerless, I have attended the massacre of my future.”