I came across the phrase “Dowager’s Hump”, which I take to mean a hunchbacked posture.
Strangely, there are a reasonably sized number of videos on the internet with advice on how to correct the issue but nothing explaining the origin of the phrase.
Based on my knowledge of history, my expectation would be that it comes from women who were living on their own and owned property, but needed to earn an income in some way. They probably turned to clothes washing and/or clothes mending/tailoring/etc. which lead to working, hunched over something, and caused them to develop a “Dowager’s Hump”.
You’re overthinking it. A dowager was a widow, hence an older woman. The hump is a sign of osteoporosis, which you’ll still see afflicts some elderly women.
Also afflicts some elderly men, although not as many.
Yes, the term “dowager’s hump” refers to the hunchback posture of some types of osteoporosis. It happens when the vertebrae become so weak they start collapsing. In the old days people just put up with the pain and deformity (in advanced cases it could even cause breathing and heart problems) because there wasn’t an alternative. Nowadays there are some types of surgery that might help, and various other therapies. Not perfect, but better than in the past.
For once, I am my, well, their cite. My back vertebrae are mostly fused from anklyosing spodilitus, however one spells it. I lost about six inches in height.
This news source would seem to imply that it might have originated as a slam against corsets and high heeled shoes:
These beauty-making implements made it hard to stand straight, inducing a slouch. Eventually, this became a hump that was more common among former beauties who outlived their elderly husbands.
I can’t easily find any additional details on the term’s etymology, but historically, the term “dowager” referred to, not just an older woman, but an older woman who held a title and/or property – in other words, she probably wouldn’t have had to work once she became widowed. However, it also looks like the term has broadened somewhat in its use, to refer to elderly women, generally (though typically ones of a dignified manner).
Barring any information to the contrary, I’d suspect that the term came about simply as a reference to older women, as they are more likely to suffer from osteoporosis, leading to that back curvature.
In re-reading the OP, I think that @Sage_Rat is specifically looking to understand the etymology of the term, not the condition itself, and whether it was related to their hypothesis about older women having to work to support themselves, and thus, developing the condition.
The alternative would be that I was complaining that people are - in modern times - incessantly making and publishing videos about how to correct an issue that I believed was caused by 1850s style dowagers being forced to enter the workforce in the only occupations available to them at the time.
Nothing in that article specifically refers to “dowager’s hump,” or uses that term, however. It refers to “debutante slouch,” which was apparently a completely different thing:
The article does mention “old woman’s hump” in the third paragraph, but again, doesn’t use the word “dowager,” and in fact, it’s opining that women being active and working is reducing that hump, not causing it.
People use the term “dowager’s hump” instead of “age-related postural hyperkyphosis”. Another possibility for the origin of the term may be that in the 19th century (assuming the term is actually that old) higher income elderly women (i.e., dowagers if they are widowed) had a higher chance to survive to the age where their osteoporosis progressed to that degree.
I suspect its origin is less from this (frankly unlikely) class of newly working old ladies fallen on hard times, than on the caricatured way old women of a particular class were portrayed in the popular theatre and graphic art.
It falls in a rich but sadly dying tradition in English and English of adjectivalising body parts and medical conditions - ‘shagger’s back’, ‘tennis elbow’, wanker’s cramp’ etc.
Yeah, I seem to have been wrong. It’s not perfect evidence but the dual use with debutante’s slump seems to indicate that people might have thought there was a connection.
