We can’t truly protect people from abusive relationships under capitalism. Any situation in which you’re forced to be financially dependent on a romantic partner is one where you can be exploited or abused. My impression is this is much more common with big age gap relationships since the older partner is more financially and socially savvy and the younger one is more naïve to potential abuse and less financially secure generally. Not to say of course that an abusive relationship requires financial dependence, but I would wager that most that become very bad DO contain some element of this, whether it’s manipulating one partner to cede control of their finances to the other, all the couple owns is under one name, coercing the other partner to leave their job etc etc. One very strong way to ensure that your victim stays with you is to make it impossible for them to stay anywhere else.

Hard rules like age of consent laws protect young people from exploitation and abuse in this fashion, but it’s not enough. No one should have to be financially dependent on their romantic partner. In a socialist society we could help remedy this by providing universal employment and a low cost of living to all to reduce the possibility that an abuser could financially control their victim. We could also provide quality transitional housing, childcare etc to those who make the decision to leave an abusive relationship.

I don’t know the exact situation between DiCapro and this woman but I would expect that she is most likely financially dependent on him, or will become so shortly. That’s typical of 21st century abusive relationships. My opinion is there is little chance that they have a relationship made up of mutual respect since there isn’t much that a 48 year old and a 19 year old really have in common, and I think anyone who wouldn’t be your friend otherwise is ever a good candidate for a romantic relationship. It’s more likely that he is using his money to live out a power fantasy.