Young Skinny Brunette Girl With Pigtails On The Rural Village Road With A Scarf

In Britain, pigtails do not convey a childish connotation. Even to this day British barristers wear a wig with pigtails as a sign of their authority.
In some regions of China, traditional culture related the wearing of pigtails to a girl's marital status. A young, unmarried, Chinese girl would often wear two buns, or bundles of hair on either side of the head to display her availability to prospective husbands. However, when this girl would marry, the two pigtails, or buns, would be replaced with just one, thus indicating her marriage. It is thought that this may have led to the Western view of pigtails being typically associated with children and young girls; unmarried Chinese girls who had immigrated to the Western world would still wear their hairstyles as they had in China. This cultural aspect gradually spread to Westerners, although its meaning was largely lost. It is worth noting, however, that Chinese boys and men did not change their hairstyle regardless of marital status.