Reciprocal. 2. In contracts there must always be a consideration in order to make them valid. This is sometimes mutual, as when one man promises to pay a sum of money to another in consideration that he shall deliver him a horse, and the latter promises to deliver him the horse in consideration of being paid the price agreed upon. When a man and a woman promise to marry each other, the promise is mutual. It is one of the qualities of an award, that it be mutual; but this doctrine is not as strict now as formerly. 3 Rand. 94; see 3 Caines 254; 4 Day, 422; 1 Dall. 364, 365; 6 Greenl. 247; 8 Greenl. 315; 6 Pick. 148. 3. To entitle a contracting party to a specific performance of an agreement, it must be mutual, for otherwise it will not be compelled. 4. A distinction has been made between mutual debts and mutual credits. The former term is more limited in its signification than the latter. In bankrupt cases where a person was indebted to the bankrupt in a sum payable at a future day, and the bankrupt owed him a smaller sum which was then due; this, though in strictness, not a mutual debt, was holden to be a mutual credit.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
Interchangeable; reciprocal; each acting in return or correspondence to the other; given and received; spoken of an engagement or relation in which like duties and obligations are exchanged.”Mutual” is not synonymous with “common.” The latter word, in one of its meanings, denotes that which is shared, in the same or different degrees, by two or more persons; but the former implies reciprocal action or interdependent connection. As to mutual “Accounts,” “Assent,w “Combat,” “Conditions,” “Contracts,” “Covenants,” “Credits,” “Debts,” “Insurance,” “Insurance Company,” “Mistake,” “Promise,” and “Testaments,” see those titles.