any certainty" that Laurens and Hamilton were lovers, noting that such an affair would have required the exercise of "extraordinary precautions" because sodomy was a capital offense throughout the colonies at the time. Chernow concluded that based on available evidence, "At the very least, we can say that Hamilton developed something like an adolescent crush on his friend." According to Chernow, "Hamilton did not form friendships easily and never again revealed his interior life to another man as he had to Laurens", and after Laurens' death, "Hamilton shut off some compartment of his emotions and never reopened it." In contrast to Hamilton's effusive letters, surviving letters from Laurens to Hamilton were notably less frequent and less passionately worded, although some letters written by Laurens have been lost or may have been destroyed. Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed The relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed is another example of a relationship that some modern sources consider ambiguously or potentially gay, while others maintain it was a romantic friendship. Lincoln and Speed lived together for a time, shared a bed in their youth and maintained a lifelong friendship. David Herbert Donald pointed out that men at that time often shared beds for financial reasons; men were accustomed to same-sex non-sexual intimacy, since most parents could not afford separate beds or rooms for male siblings. Anthony Rotundo argues that the custom of romantic friendship for men in America in the early 19th century was different from that of Renaissance France, and it was expected that men would distance themselves emotionally and physically somewhat after marriage; he claims that letters between Lincoln and Speed show this distancing after Lincoln married Mary Todd. Such distancing is still practiced today. Romantic friendships in women's colleges As the American suffrage movement succeeded in gaining rights for white middle- and upper-class women, heterosexual marriage became less of a necessity, and many more women went to college and continued to live in female-centric communities after graduation. The all-women peer culture formed at women's colleges allowed students to create their own social rules and hierarchies, to become each other's leaders and heroes, and to idolize each other. These idolizations often took the forms of romantic friendships, which contemporaries called "smashes", "crushes" and "spoons". The practice of "smashing" involved one student showering another with gifts: notes, chocolates, sometimes even locks of hair. When the object of the student's affections was