"Gentlemen Golovlevs" is a social novel from the life of a noble family. The disintegration of bourgeois society, as in a mirror, was reflected in the disintegration of the family. The whole complex of moral relations that cement family ties and regulate moral norms of behavior is collapsing. The topic of family becomes topical. The attention of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in this novel is entirely devoted to the analysis of deformities, the study of causes and the display of consequences.