hair's colour in Sanskrit

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Robert Zydenbos wrote:

>A young Bengali woman in Germany informed me that in the Bengali language there
>are four words (which I do not recall now; can any Bengalis help?) for shades
>of skin colouring. She belonged to the darkest category, and so her fair
>parents in Calcutta decided not to save money for a dowry but to send her to
>college instead, since she would have to support herself later on in life. (She
>later married a German and showed off her pale-faced husband to her Calcutta
>friends who were supposedly so fair and beautiful!)

This is quite a story! It reminds me of similar stories that happened here
about a 100 years ago, when unmarriable middle-class women became teachers
or took up some other "respectable" profession, since they had little chance
of getting a husband.

Lars Martin Fosse
Dr.art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo

Tel: +47 22 32 12 19
Fax: +47 22 32 12 19
Email: L.M.Fosse at internet.no
Mobile phone: 90 91 91 45