SN 35.133 presents us with an unusual situation: a brahmin student whose teacher was a woman. Unheard of!
There’s an ambiguity in the text, as it includes the phrase ācariyabhariyā, which elsewhere always means “teacher’s wife”. Here, however, the student has already been said to be the “pupil of the lady”, so dictionaries say ācariyabhariyā means “female teacher”. I disagree, I think the meaning is well established and there is another explanation.
She is said to hail from the Verahaccāni clan, but this is not an attested clan name. Pali vera is not elsewhere attested in this sense, but the Sanskrit vīra, as well as having the basic sense “hero”, can mean a “man”, and specifically a husband or male progeny.
Thus Sanskrit vairahatya means “manslaughter”, literally the killing of a male. This is the exact lexical equivalent of Pali verahacca, although I confess I can’t account for the āni ending here.
This would seem to explain why her husband the teacher is so mysteriously absent. Is there enough evidence to conclude that she, in fact, murdered him? Probably not. I just put that in the heading for clicks. But perhaps verahaccāni is a term for brahmin ladies whose husbands were killed.
Compare nirvīrā, a woman whose husband and children are dead.
If so, it would seem that she did not merely survive her husband’s passing, she stepped into his role as teacher.