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Basically what it says in the question, are Space Marines allowed to raise families? I'm thinking especially about the Salamanders and the Space Wolves, who seem like the most community-oriented chapters, although I wouldn't put it past the Ultramarines.

no, Salmanders interact with their families after they join, but they don't get married and have kids.

A hand full of chapters keep in touch with their families, but Space Marines are generally portrayed as either Asexual or sterile. I can't think of a single example of a spacemarine having a kid or even being romantically involved with another person. Love is the death of duty.

GW have never outright stated that Marines are "non-functional" in that department but we have 10K years of fluff and it has never been mentioned as happening.

Also, when the Emperor's children fell to Slaanesh, they were looking for new and exciting ways to kill, even while the humans around them were having an orgy. If Marines retained any sexual instincts, that would have been the time to hint/imply/state it.

They don't have the time, or the opportunity.

However, having a family member recruited as a Space marine is an honour - one of Arbitrator Calpurnia's great-uncles was recruited into the Ultramarines, which was a great boost for her family* and the recruitment of one member of the Dark Angels had become a tribal legend by the time that same Marine returned as a member of the Deathwing on a later recruitment mission**.

It's been implied in a few sources that some Space Wolves are recruited sufficiently old that they might have fathered children before being recruited, but they'll have no contact with them (or any other native Fenrisians) afterwards.

* Enforcer trilogy, Matthew Farrer
** Deathwing - William King

Depending on the chapter, hynpo training will erase or bury the memories of life before the marine's life in the chapter.

Ultramarines are known to have ties with their families but they still have little contact with them.
Space Wolves acknowledge the tribe they "ascended" from but never (unless they become Wolf Priests) will visit them.

Grey Knights will have all their previous identiy erased and be given a name that is a part of a True Name.

There are no explicit sources that state that marines father children or have families of their own.

The Ultramarines' family ties aren't, I think, personal. It's more that families who have supplied recruits to the Chapter will rise through the social heirarchy, and possibly also be more likely to attain careers in liaison positions (if youre great-great-great-uncle became a Marine, then your factory will be more likely to win the contract for supplying Rhino engine valve springs or whatnot).

I think there are differences between Horus Heresy style space marines and 40k.

In HH/30K it seems like they retain many memories of their early lives and remember their parents and home planets etc.

In 40K space marines appear to overwhelmingly be further conditioned and often mind wiped so they don't care or seem to care for their families.

There was a moment in a HH novel (between 10 and 20) where a space marine at least considers a female to be attractive and give her respect, as if he might love her if he could... but there is no further reference in it.

Also Fulgrim has once been described as having "ruin" a corpse. I'm not sure what that means. No evidence of families, but maybe at a real stretch some indication of something sexual. But don't take that too far please.

keep in mind marines in 30k where proably also much younger on average. memory fades with time and you're simply less likely to rememebr a parent dead and gone for 200 years then one whose still alive. take the protagionist from the black legion books, he was a fairly influential individual in his legion, but couldn't have been older then 50 or so at the time his sister became the Annamius.

It’s possible a potential recruit could have fathered a child, at the upper end of the recruitment range they’d be physically capable. But it’s very unlikely there’d be contact at all after recruitment and zero chance of them naturally fathering a child after becoming a marine.

I suppose you could invent a chapter that takes sperm from successful candidates for in vitro fertilization as that technology certainly exists. Either have the kids fully artificial or be implanted in female volunteers. You’d have to be carful how you wrote it as it has the potential to become icky.

Any family of a successful marine recruit would be honoured in most cultures marines recruit from

One of the HH books addresses the memory issue to some extent. Marines develop their enhanced memories during their training and implantations. This means that their memories post-transformation stay clear and sharp for the rest of their long lives. Their memories of childhood fade as normal however. With little contact with mortals, these fading memories probably become increasingly irrelevant after a decade or so in service.

I don't think that most Chapters deliberately mind wipe recruits (GKs aside) as they would risk wiping the character traits that led to the recruits becoming successful aspirants in the first place.

 Karhedron wrote:
One of the HH books addresses the memory issue to some extent. Marines develop their enhanced memories during their training and implantations. This means that their memories post-transformation stay clear and sharp for the rest of their long lives. Their memories of childhood fade as normal however. With little contact with mortals, these fading memories probably become increasingly irrelevant after a decade or so in service.

I don't think that most Chapters deliberately mind wipe recruits (GKs aside) as they would risk wiping the character traits that led to the recruits becoming successful aspirants in the first place.

I think this is discussed in the first Raven Guard Horus Heresy novel or maybe it was Know No Fear. They could come up with a way of improving the way recruits are brought into the legion, but the primarch is upset that they could wipe the personalities of the recruits. He says differing personalities, opinions are important.