My mom got her first teaching job in a very small town in south- central Nebraska in the mid-1930's; her contract specified she could teach until she married. The reason was: male fear! If a female teacher got married, she might become pregnant, and the school board didn't want teachers to have to explain what was going on and how they got that way! Heaven forbid! She married in 1941 and the rules weren't changed until right before the second World War! I could never quite figure that out; the kid's teachers couldn't be pregnant but their moms surely could, so what's the big diff???