fact corresponds to no lineage (actual tsu) which has ever existed in Fukien and Kwangtung, it is at least a summary of the (functional) characteristics of a great number of such lineages (154), (parenthetical additions mine)
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Freedman certainly did not invent the lineage as an ancestral-qua-descent-qua-economic-qua-political organisation for which there is an explicit tradition of writing in both the anthropological and sinological literature. He simply tried to put together a systematic explanation of the lineage as an analytical construct in a way which could explain a broad range of social phenomena. Thus, for example, in the context of a village, whether it be single or multi-lineage, he would have simply argued that the expansion of descent group(s) should follow the expectations of a lineage model; this is not dissimilar to what Faure calls the process of "lineage-building". However, there is a crucial difference in Freedman's usage of lineage which Faure does not point out. For Freedman (alone), the lineage was a descent-group in name only, that is to say, a fiction; the strength of agnatic solidarity was essentially a marker or index of its economic strength in terms of corporate property. For Faure on the other hand, the tracing of descent is something very real; for it is the substance of those residence or territorial groups that forms the heart of his "lineage society". Freedman indeed does explicitly project a lineage model onto the constitution of territorial groups in his 1966 monograph. However, the only point he meant to put forth was that, in terms of the lineage model, the single-lineage village should have represented the sociological norm, again irrespective of its actual statistical distribution. In other words, there is no reason to believe why a multi-lineage village should be any more socially solidary than a single-lineage village, all else being equal. Simple (and ridiculous) as it may seem, this is the only way in which one can properly understand the discovery made by Strauch (1983) that the multi-lineage village was not as loose as had been hypothesized by the model. She merely added that territorial solidarity (in various forms) could be a substitute for agnatic solidarity and in a way which does not conflict with Freedman's model. As for Faure's focus upon the importance of village religion for territorial organization, Freedman would probably have welcomed it as something complementary to and not inconsistent with his understanding of the lineage as an analytical (functional) construct.