We consider the features of demographic behavior, family and marital life of the representatives of the military class, which includes recruits, lower ranks soldiers, retired soldiers, and soldiers on indefinite leave, service-disabled veterans and members of their families: soldiers’ wives, soldiers’ children – cantonists and soldiers’ daughters. On the basis of involvement of a wide range of
... [Show full abstract] archival and published sources and materials we reconstructed family experience and marriage behavior of military veterans in the Russian Empire in the 19th century. We also identify social and legal, estates, domestic conflicts and trends that defined marriage rate, family structure of military veterans. Demographic positions and statistical errors in the calculation of representatives of the military class in the Russian province are clarified. We give a detailed historiographical assessment of the study of the daily and family life of military veterans, as well as the care system for the families of retired and soldiers on indefinite leave, as well as service-disabled veterans. Conclusions are made about the prospects of studying this scientific problem in the works of domestic and foreign historians, demographers, regional researchers, as well as the uni-queness of family and marriage relations among the representatives of the military class in the era of modernizing Russia.