Michael Gove writes in the [UK] Times that this is a tough question for him. He and his wife have two small children, and every pound spent on the wife is one less to spend on the kids. Also, one must also keep in mind the duty to leave an inheritance for future generations. He also believes that spending household savings on presents for Mrs Gove diminishes her personal autonomy.

My wife and I have one joint bank account between us. Into that pot goes all our earnings. And from that source comes all our expenditure. So when I buy a Christmas present for my wife, paid for by a cheque drawn on that account, I am simultaneously reducing the amount of money available to her for buying the items she has determined she needs. In other words, I am deciding what is good for her.

We all know how much we hate it when the government does that to us, so it behooves us not to do that to our loved ones. Yet, when the big day arrives, he doesn't think his wife would accept his existential anxiety in lieu of a present.

But I know that if I tried either of those lines on Mrs Gove to explain the total absence of items under the tree with her name on them, her first thought would not be admiration for the perfect philosophical rigour of my ethical reasoning. She would, quite rightly, conclude that I was a cruel, heartless, unfeeling brute who was hiding behind general principles that proclaimed respect for others while showing none through my practical actions.

Sometimes ya just can't win. He falls back on the Golden Rule.

The answer to most questions is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I just hope that my wife enjoys reading the third volume of Robert A. Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson over January as much as I will.