A family preference is not a legal order.
Parental responsibility concerns minor children. The daughter in the question is already an adult. Personal freedom generally includes choosing to have a relationship and live with a partner.
Respect does not require parents to approve of every choice. They can explain concerns, listen or offer support. The boundary is crossed when they seek to replace their adult daughter’s decision through coercion or supposed parental authority.
The other three answers
The other answers claim a decision-making power that does not exist here.
They have the right to bring their daughter back to the parental home.
Disapproval gives the parents no right to bring their adult daughter back to their home against her will.
They can go to the police and report their daughter.
Living with a boyfriend is not a criminal offence in this example. The police are not a means of undoing an unwanted but freely chosen relationship.
They look for another man for their daughter.
The parents cannot impose another man on their adult daughter. Her own free choice is what matters.
The answer concerns disapproval, not actual danger.
The scenario says only that the parents dislike the boyfriend. It contains no violence, threats or other concrete danger. Such additional circumstances would need separate consideration; they must not be turned into blanket control over adult relatives.
Self-determination does not itself answer who must pay rent or living expenses. Those questions likewise do not mean mere parental disapproval can dictate a choice of partner.
Section 2 · Adulthood · Civil Code ↗Adult: parents can advise, but cannot dictate a partner choice.
The decisive detail is “22 years old”: the daughter is no longer a minor.
Three words for this question
- volljährigof legal adult age
- In Germany, generally from the 18th birthday.
- die Selbstbestimmungself-determination
- Making personal life decisions within the law and others’ rights.
- respektierento respect
- Acknowledging another person’s own decision, even when disagreeing.