OH, puhleez. This is so much worse than theories of "codependency," as if a woman with young kids being financially dependent on her alcoholic husband isn't an actual serious problem, it's just some sort of emotional disorder. If you are married and financially dependent on the guy, you wake him up and help him get to work and you cover up his alcoholism because you and your kids are dependent upon his money, not because you need therapy or something. Geez.

Lola had no papers. She had no means to job hunt. She had no social connections outside the family. They uprooted her and moved her repeatedly. They never gave her the allowance they promised. This was her only means of survival. And she had agreed to it to get out of being married off to some asshole twice her age. So, she could do domestic labor or she could be de facto a sex slave. That would have probably involved all of the same abuses this involved, only add into it routine rape as part of the deal. She came from a place with no prospects. Then, having taken this deal, she was incredibly trapped.

It is abhorrent to westerners, but indentured servitude used to be pretty common and was often done somewhat willingly/by choice as a means to pay a debt with labor at a time when money per se was hard to come by. Historically, it was not uncommon for people to pay for passage to the U.S. by agreeing to 7 years of indentured servitude following their trip here.

That is still reality in a lot of places in the world. We don't want to hear it, but there is some truth to the idea that you need a middle class income to afford middle class morality. There are parts of the world where large numbers of people have no hope of anything resembling a middle class American lifestyle.