The above method is also useful for giving better gear to spouses who are not also followers.
Shields and weapons only , NPC such as these will only wear their default clothing/armor.
Would not recommend any weapons/staffs with area of effect damage since they may aggro friendlies when using them.
I also plant Healing Potions but have not yet seen any consumed
Note- For Paralysis ability , you can avoid having to level Alteration by going to Snapleg Cave and obtaining the staff there.
On giving new gear to spouses? Do you mean battle gear, or different clothing?
weapons/shields will be used by them when they fight but they won`t use different armor or clothes
Further experiments with paralyze/pickpocket technique with friendly NPC like bards and non-follower spouse have been quite "revealing" .
When the NPC`s inventory reveals equipped clothing or armor(some like Ysolda do not), you can remove such without the Perfect Touch perk.
If you leave at least one worn item on them , they will continue the game without wearing anything where items were removed elsewhere(no replacement accepted)
But if you take all of their equipped gear , you can afterward take same to an enchanting table.
Once enchanted , you can return it all by same method before the NPC respawns new duds and when they do respawn they will be wearing the enchanted gear.
I was able to further apply this technique with followers who were giving me trouble wearing the clothes I wanted them to wear.
For instance , I wanted to use Marcurio as a pure mage.
While he would readily don a hood and gloves in empty spots , he was reluctant to switch to improved robes and boots since they had no armor rating.
So I took him to my house , got him alone , gave him some iron armor and iron boots to wear(necessary to view default gear in inventory) and then dismissed him.
Before he could walk away or change attire , I paralyzed/picked his default robes and boots.
When he stood up I rehired him.
I then enchanted his boots appropriately and used same method to return(boots only)
He wears those boots and a loin cloth as he lounges in the Bee and Barb now but will don any kind of clothes or robes once hired.