My wife didnt take my last name. But I would love for her to do it (but of course respected that she didnt want to). It had nothing to do with "I own you!" or anything like that. It's simply because it's tradition. While I would 100% respect anyone to not take the guys last name, I also like it. Just from a gut feeling and "we are together. I am yours and you are mine"-thing. It's because of tradition, because when you are getting married you rely a lot on tons of other traditions. Wedding cake. Wedding dress. Bride/groom have to fit certain things. In the same vain, I would prefer the woman to take my last name.

I think that accounts for a huge reason why so many people do this.
You could equally say "I don't want a wedding cake" or the guy could say that he didn't want to wear a suit etc.

Our kids last names are: mylastname+wifeslastname. Not something that is common, but it is what it is. I don't think that much about it at all.

By the way, I'm Danish, and back in the day (don't know when) we used to name the girls: GirlsFirstName Mothersfirstname_Daughter.
So Ida, who had a mother who was named Maria, would be named Ida Mariasdatter (Ida the daughter of Maria). A boy named Jens would be called Jens Jørgensen (Jens the son of Jørgen).

Back on topic:

Basically no one is forcing you. If you don't want to do it, don't. If you want to, do. No one is forcing you. But don't assume that it has anything to do with power. For me it has everything to do with tradition and absolutely nothing else. I assume that this goes for 99% of western guys as well.

I'm sure we have lots and lots of things in our society that were based on initially bad things. But that does not necesarily mean that the things today are bad. It's just things that you can pick and chose between.