>equitable marriage

There's no such thing, that's the joke.

A difference in habilities does not forcefully lead to abuse. There can also be abuse in "equitable" human relationships.

One does not imply the other.

Which is why I said foundation—all of these things would be good to have. Look we're talking about consent here and when a reasonable person can actually know that their partner is freely and enthusiastically consenting.

The existence of the legal system and social norms does a decent enough job of deterring violence thus establishing a feeling of safety in both partners who can now say no without fear of harm. When the system empowers both partners to say no you can now trust the yes. You can apply the exact same logic to divorce with regards to money. And this is important because someone who feels they're in danger will play along, it will look in every way enthusiastic but won't be and their partner has no way to tell the difference.

So now we get to boss and subordinate relationships. There is no equalizing mechanism that makes the subordinate in this situation feel like they can say no. A boss can ruin their life and fairly easily make it not look like retaliation. And you wonder why workplaces' solution is forbid them with near zero tolerance. The only slack typically given is if a relationship starts at work between a boss and their report they immediately move the subordinate to a different reporting line. And CEOs don't get this slack because where would you move the subordinate?

So you're right power imbalances will always exist but you're ignoring that we actually do try to correct the very one sided imbalances and the ones that we can't we forbid. I mean when you get down to it the reason for hard forbidding adults to sleep with teenagers even in cases where the teenager is the one who wants it is because of the steep power imbalance.