#67700 - Marital status

[Katya]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/67700/

Hairstyle could also indicate marital status at the time the Jane Austen was writing. If you watch film adaptations of her books, you'll notice that married women wear their hair up and covered with a mob cap, while the single women wear their hair up and uncovered. (Girls who are too young to be "out" in society wear their hair long and down.)

[Yarjka]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/67700/

Hairstyle could also indicate marital status at the time the Jane Austen was writing. If you watch film adaptations of her books, you'll notice that married women wear their hair up and covered with a mob cap, while the single women wear their hair up and uncovered. (Girls who are too young to be "out" in society wear their hair long and down.)

I believe in Russia and Ukraine, the long single braid down the back is the traditional look to indicate that a woman is single, while keeping the hair up is a way to indicate that a woman is married.

[NerdGirl]

Hutterite men grow beards when they get married.

[Unit of Energy]

In medieval societies a married woman was not supposed to show her hair at all.

[Portia]

Are there any societies in which marital status is not indicated in any way for either gender?

[Yarjka]

Are there any societies in which marital status is not indicated in any way for either gender?

The Mosuo culture comes to mind, but they don't really fit our Western conception of marriage so it's hard to say. I suppose the Coming of Age ritual fills the same purpose, as it indicates a person's availability for "Walking Marriages."

There are probably other examples of difficult to classify customs in other cultures.