Seems to me that when folks are asked the question, "If you could live in any time, what time would you live in?"  They always seem to pick the past.  I mean, if you could live in anytime, the future is also a viable answer and we haven't made any mistakes there yet.  Why would you not want to go where everything is still pristine and untouched?  Clean slate.  Better yet, assuming that you take advantage of the question for all that it might have to offer, you could in essence make up your own time.  Like Einstein.  (See Einstein's Dreams)  Here you could use your basic modern knowledge of physics, biology, chemistry, etc. to fabricate a world where amazing things are possible even if you still get the short end of the stick.

Most women seem to want to go back to the Middle Ages, aka the Dark Ages, because of the pretty dresses they would get to wear.

  Yes, it's because of the dresses.  The only problem I see with wanting to return to an age whose title(s) is devoted to the nothingness cast about by a widespread, several-hundred-year illiteracy is that the illiteracy is the least of your worries.  The rampant disease might end up occupying more of your time than the dresses and well, you've probably got it.  Lord knows you aren't wasting time reading.  But at least you get to wear a pretty dress.

I cannot ignore chivalry which also made this period famous.  And nobody appreciates a chivalrous man more than myself but it is the intentions I still question.  In order to be somewhat respectable as a woman in such an era, you must be a true maiden until the day you wed.  How can anyone, no matter what the era, think clearly if you're being heavily courted when you haven't been able to release that sexual tension somehow.  Then again, marriage then wasn't like marriage today.  You were lucky to live past giving birth to your fifth child, of which you were expected to have at least 12.  So not to worry, I guess.  You probably won't be stuck in your worthless marriage for more than 10 years anyway.  You'd probably die before then.  But until that time, you get to wear a pretty dress.

I also believe both the black plague and the bubonic plague took strong grasp during this period and those are just the diseases that killed 1/4 of the world's population.  Don't quote me on those numbers.  What about the other diseases that just made you smelly, deformed, sterile...of course that might be an effect you'd look forward to considering my last point.  Birth control wasn't created yet despite the fact that rape was not just 'discovered' but common in Medieval times.  Despite all of that, you still get to wear a pretty dress.

Now that I have thoroughly offended all of the women who have made it this far in this post, I will share the time that I would like to live in.  The answer is here:  http://www.nozen.com/clock.htm

I can wear a pretty dress here, too.

To see more responses to Prompt #132 If I Had To Live In Another Time go to Sunday Scribbles http://sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/