“I was told that the reason was originally instigated to protect the woman and only afterward did they come up with all the reasons stated above. According to what I was told, it was started as a result of the pogroms. In a pogrom, the gentiles would try raping the women but when they would remove a woman’s turban and discover her head was shaven, they would sometimes be turned off.”
Interjection – I heard a similar idea but from the time period of the Greeks around the time Chanukah took place when engaged women had to be defiled by the Greek general the night before their wedding. I was told they shaved their heads to look unattractive.