Is there a term for a contract where the parties make identical commitments? Most contracts involve one person promising one thing and another person promising another thing. For example, in a tennancy agreement the landlord's obligations to the tenant are different from the tenant's obligations to the landlord. Historically, marriage has been viewed in a similar way. The obligations of the husband to the wife are not the same as the obligations of the wife to the husband. The vows made by the husband differ from those made by the wife. In the traditional English marriage service (Book of Common Prayer) the groom's promise is to love, comfort, honour and keep the bride, whereas she promises to obey, serve, love, honour and keep him. There is also an explanation of the differing duties. More recently marriage has been thought of as a relationship in which the duties of husband to wife are identical to the duties of wife to husband. In the modern alternative Church of England marriage service each promises to love, comfort, honour and protect the other. There is no difference. Is there a legal term or phrase for a contract where the commitments of each party are identical, as opposed to being different. I am not looking for a word like &quot;equal&quot; implying the status of the parties, or &quot;symmetrical&quot; implying, I gather, their relative bargaining strength. I hope for a word or term that means the commitments are identical.
One would often talk about &quot;reciprocal&quot; obligations. In law, a reciprocal obligation, also known as a reciprocal agreement is a duty owed by one individual to another and vice versa. It is a type of agreement that bears upon or binds two parties in an equal manner. (Wikipedia Source).
My rules of agreement making First rule of making agreements: the less trust there is in the relationship the more detail needs to be in the agreement. Second rule of making agreements: enforcing an agreement on a recalcitrant participant when simple negotiation is ineffective is rarely worth the cost and aggravation. Third rule of making agreements: Consequences for failing to comply should be spelled out in the agreement. The "or else ..." clauses all need to be detailed. Otherwise you are going to court to find out what happens. Forth rule of making agreements: Long term agreements need to be changeable and flexible. This conflicts with rules one and three - no one said this was easy. Your examples both parents shall maintain adequate housing with a separate room for each child. ... and if they can't because they lose their job? .. and what is "adequate" anyway? parents shall maintain civil relationship if both are attending the same event Good luck - by definition people with an acrimonious relationship will have difficulty being civil. neither parent will move more than 15 miles from current locations This would be a void clause - no one can tell you where you can and can't live. neither parent will have a non-blood relative member of the opposite sex spend the night while the child is present. This would also be a void clause - no one can tell you who you can and can't have as a house guest. TL;DR Your relationship with your spouse is over - get used to the fact that you will have no control on what they do and who they do it with. With that as a starting point you need to sit down like grown-ups and work out what is best for your children that fits with each of your lifestyle choices and you will need to do this again and again until the children are old enough to make their own decisions. A lawyer can't really help you with this. Edit A comment suggested that the examples were not untenable. For clarity - they are not untenable; they are unenforceable. People are free to agree to anything they want, even illegal things, and they can follow that agreement as long as they want, however, if they don't follow it and the other party turns to the courts, if the terms of the agreement are illegal then the court will not enforce them. A further comment asked for an illustration of my "third rule": neither parent will move more than 15 miles from current locations without providing at least 3 months notice. During the notice period the parents will meet and attempt to agree on revised custody arrangements. Should agreement not be possible or the notice period not be met then the revised arrangements shall be X, Y &amp; Z.
The earliest mention of the principle that I can find is in Rolston v Secretary of State for Northern Ireland [1975] NI 195, where the matter of compensation for the widow of a police officer murdered in Northern Ireland arose. I am sure there are earlier cases that express the same principle in different terms, however. It is a broad principle that applies to most areas of civil law, and I cannot find an original source for it. I imagine that it is simply &quot;received wisdom&quot; that has been repeated long enough to become a cornerstone of the law of restitution in England and Wales. There is currently no statutory basis for the principle so I cannot cite any relevant Acts of Parliament either.
The site that you provide is explaining basics of contract law, and that quote attempts to explicate (and they refer to) the Latin maxim consensus ad idem, generally explained in modern language as &quot;meeting of the minds&quot;. Here is a brief overview of that legal concept. The basis idea is that the parties are talking about the same thing. An example of a lack of meeting of the minds is here, where a complainant agreed to withdraw a complaint in exchange for a service pin plus &quot;any/all straight time compensation&quot; lost. It was later established that the complainant believed that this included time off from work on sick leave, but the agency held that this had already been compensated – thus the parties did not agree to what was &quot;compensation lost&quot;. The &quot;agreement&quot; was thus found to be void, because the parties did not in fact agree on the meaning of the terms. Your purported example would not indicate a lack of meeting of the minds, though it might indicate fraud. A lack of meeting of the minds could arise if the seller intended objects A, C to be items on offer but the buyer believed objects A, B, D to be the offer. It should be noted that the law does not let a person get out of a contract simply by declaring &quot;I thought that...&quot;, the courts will look at the objective evidence as to what the parties did believe.
Common Law Contracts Contracts do not have to be signed. They do not even have to be written down. In fact, the overwhelming majority of contracts entered into are not written &ndash; when did you last sign a contract to buy a cup of coffee? See What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid? A contract is an enforceable agreement. It exists from the moment that agreement was reached irrespective of who signed what. Putting a signature on a contract is evidence of the contract: it is not the contract. Real Estate Having said this, real estate law is an area where legislators can't leave the common law alone and is generally subject to specific regulation. For example, it is quite common that real estate contracts must be in writing and are unenforceable if they are not. However, while the contract may not be enforceable, the promise might be. Promissory Estoppel The common law as we know it today is actually derived from two different stands of English law: the actual common law as decided by the magistrates, and equity law as decided by the King/Queen in the courts of Chancellery. In the absence of a contract there is nothing the common law can enforce. However, principles of equity law are grounded in notions of fairness (or equity &ndash; see how that works?). If I were to make a promise to you (that was not a contract) and you took action on the strength of my promise that would be to your detriment and I knew you were doing that: promissory estoppel would prevent me from breaking my promise or allow you to recover damages (more or less &ndash; in practice a promissory estoppel suit is usually an act of desperation). Your lease When was the contract formed? If the agreement had been reached and the written lease simply documented that agreement without adding anything new, then the contract is already on foot and both Aaron and Bob are bound. If agreement has not been reached or there were additional terms in the document (which there almost certainly would be) then by putting forward the document Aaron is making an offer to Bob. By extending the offer, Aaron knows that he cannot lease the premises to someone else until the offer has been rejected or he withdraws the offer: this is true irrespective of whether Aaron has signed or not. If Bob accepts that offer without changing it, then the contract exists from the moment of Bob's acceptance irrespective of whether he has signed. If Bob makes changes (other than inconsequential ones) then he has made a counteroffer: the ball is now in Aaron's court and the original offer is dead. Promissory estoppel can arise if, for example, the negotiations ends with Bob saying, "I'm looking at several places but yours would be the one I want if you were to change the carpets," Aaron send Bob carpet samples, Bob picks one, Aaron makes the change, and Bob then walks away.
The only one I can find so far relates to a Brazilian citizen getting married abroad, called a: Consular Declaration of Civil Status These are issued by the Consular Authority to: Brazilian citizens who intend to marry before a foreign authority within their jurisdiction. The document is issued in English. Source: gov.br (I have yet to find if a comparable certificate is available in-country, for marriage or otherwise, but none of the official guidance sites I have trawled though mention it)
Where the primary part of two acts in the same year would be the same, commonly a secondary phrase is added in brackets indicating the narrow subject of the act to avoid this happening. For example, the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2016 was followed later in the year by the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Act 2016. However, where such a secondary phrase would be inappropriate, especially where the later act replaces the earlier act, the main part of the short title of the second act is appended with "(No. 2)". One such example occurred in 2009, where the Appropriation Act 2009 was replaced by the Appropriation Act (No. 2) 2009. So in your hypothetical case, the later act would likely have "Parliament Act (No. 2) 1911" as its short title. I should note though that this is governed by custom, so there is no guarantee that a particular act must follow this approach.
The court said in Obergefell (emphasis mine): Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right. If same-sex couples are to be given in marriage the "same legal treatment" as opposite-sex couples, the divorce process must also be the same.