In 1835, the only Nestorian woman that knew how to read was Heleneh, the sister of Mar Shimon; and when others were asked if they would not like to learn, with a significant shrug they would reply, "I am a woman." They had themselves no more desire to learn than the men had to have them taught. Indeed, the very idea of a woman reading was regarded as an infringement of female modesty and propriety. It is a little curious, and shows how we adapt ourselves to our situation, that the women were as unwilling to receive attention from their husbands as they were to render it. Several years after the arrival of Miss Fiske in Oroomiah, the wife of one of her assistants visited the Seminary, and on leaving to return to her village, the teacher, in the kindness of her heart, proposed to the husband to go and assist her to carry the child. She seemed as if she had been insulted in being thought unable to carry it, and sent her husband back from the door in any thing but a gracious mood, leaving the good teacher half bewildered and half amused at this reception of her intended kindness. Indeed, until some of them were converted, all that was lovely and of good report in woman was entirely wanting. They were trodden down, but at the same time exceedingly defiant and imperious. If they were not the "head," it was not because they did not "strive for the mastery." They seemed to have no idea of self-control; their bursts of passion were awful. The number of women who reverenced their husbands was as small as the list of husbands who did not beat their wives. Says Miss Fiske, in writing to a friend, "I felt pity for my poor sisters before going among them, but anguish when, from actual contact with them, I realized how very low they were. I did not want to leave them, but I did ask, Can the image of Christ ever be reflected from such hearts? They would come and tell me their troubles, and fall down at my feet, begging me to deliver them from their husbands. They would say, 'You are sent by our holy mother, Mary, to help us;' and do not think me hard-hearted when I tell you that I often said to them, 'Loose your hold of my feet; I did not come to deliver you from your husbands, but to show you how to be so good that you can be happy with them.' Weeping, they would say, 'Have mercy on us; if not, we must kill ourselves.' I had no fear of their doing that, so I would seat them at my side, and tell them of my own dear father,--how good he was; but he was always _obeyed_. They would say, 'We could obey a good man.' 'But I am very sure you would not have been willing to obey my father.'