Bonds were, however, and still are given to secure performance of a variety of matters other than the payment of a sum of money at a fixed date. They may be given and are given, for instance, to guarantee the fidelity of a clerk, of a rent collector, or of a person in an office of public trust, or to secure that an intended husband will settle a sum on his wife in the event of her surviving him, or that a building contract shall be carried out, or that a rival business shall not be carried on by the obligor except within certain limits of time and space. The same object can often be attained--and more conveniently attained--by a covenant than by bond, and covenants have in the practice of conveyancers largely superseded bonds, but there are cases where security by bond is still preferable to security by covenant. Thus under a bond to secure an annuity, if the obligor makes default, judgment may be entered for the penalty and stand as security for the future payments without the necessity of bringing a fresh action for each payment. In cases of bonds with special conditions, such as those instanced above, the remedy of the obligee for breach of the condition is prescribed by an act of 1696, the procedure under which is preserved by the Judicature Act (O. xxii. R. 1, O. xiii. R. 14). The obligee assigns the particular breaches of which he complains, damages in respect of such breaches are assessed, and, on payment into court by the obligor of the amount of such damages, the court enters a stay of execution. A difficulty which has much exercised and still exercises the courts is to determine, in these cases of special conditions, whether the sum for which the bond is given is a true penalty or only liquidated damages. There is nothing to prevent the parties to a bond from agreeing the damages for a breach, and if they have done so, the court will not interfere, as it will in the case of a penalty. The leading case on the subject is _Kemble_ v. _Farren_ (1829; 6 Bing. 148). Bonds given to secure the doing of anything which is contrary to the policy of the law are void. Such, for instance, is a bond given to a woman for future cohabitation (as distinguished from past cohabitation), or a marriage brocage bond, that is, a bond given to procure a marriage between parties. (See the matrimonial agency case, _Hermann_ v. _Charlesworth_, 1905, 2 K.B. 123). It was not without design that Shakespeare laid the scene of Shylock's suit on Antonio's bond in a Venetian court; the bond would have had short shrift in an English court. _Post Obit Bonds._--A post obit bond is one given by an expectant heir or legatee, payable on or after the death of the person from whom the obligor has expectations. Such a bond, if the obligee has exacted unconscionable terms, may be set aside.