Re Little Red Riding Hood:
The colour red is used in the traditional female dresses in German regions.
In the Black Forest the colour of the balls upon the hat show the marital status: red = unmarried, black = married.
So it is in my home country of Hessen. In the "Schwalm", a small county around a rivulet of the same name it is the same. In the right corner you see two unmarried girls (red caps), to the left two married women (black caps). The girls in red are the archetype of the original Little Red Riding Hood as told by the Grimm Bros. In the middle you see bride and groom. Note the bright colours of a part of their dresses.
In other parts of our country the distinction by colour of the headgear can be finer: unmarried = red, married, young = green, married, old = violet, widow = black. The older the darker - such is life.