The article examines the sociocultural value of the family in the minds of military university cadets in the light of changes that have occurred in the marriage and family sphere in modern Russian society. The first part of the article reveals relevance of this problem, content of terminal values, their classification and characteristics of individual groups. The article highlights some trends that occurred in the public consciousness of the late XX – early XXI centuries concerning the values of the marriage and family sphere. To get a deeper insight into the nature of this problem, the authors studied many works, compared the leading scientific approaches of scientists in the study of terminal values. The article examines theoretical ideas about family and marriage relations and the results of empirical research of social and cultural family values in the minds of students in the framework of teaching at the Department for military and political work, Russian Air Force Military Educational and Scientific Center “Air Force Academy “Professor N.E. Zhukovsky and Major Y.A. Gagarin”. The authors provide data from the methods and conduct a detailed qualitative analysis of the level of life-meaning orientations and the most significant terminal values of cadets. The educational impact on cadets in order to form the value of the family in a military University is complex. The content of training programs in the disciplines “Psychology”, “Psychology and Pedagogy”, “Personnel Management in the armed forces of the Russian Federation” is aimed at solving this problem. The article makes an important conclusion that the training of cadets for family life is a significant part of military-political work in a military university, and the adjustment and formation of terminal values of young people in accordance with socially significant values is achievable with a systematic, purposeful psychological and pedagogical process of training cadets for marital and family relationship.