According to Aristotle, it is only the heads of the households that can be citizens of the Polis. This is typically the male/father/husband. That man is given the civic responsibility of contemplating and discussing political ideas to strengthen the community. A person is a citizen if they are doing these two things—discussing and contemplating the ideals of the polis.
How Aristotle defines citizen is very different from how we define citizen now. Now, in the 21st century, all people born in the United States are citizens and those not born here can apply for citizenship. I wonder if there is something to be said for how we interpret Aristotle’s definition into our civic duty as Americas. As citizens of the U.S. we are granted the right to vote and while some do not use this right, it is widely believed that voting is an important part of citizenship. Although citizenship includes a much wider variety of people now than it did in Athens, the same concept of participating through discourse and thought including voting.
Citizenship, as you said, currently applies to a larger range of individuals than that which Aristotle had ruled, though I wonder if the United States' notion of citizenship oversimplifies the relationship between the country and the people who live in it. Voting is, in my opinion, one of the more low-effort ways to participate in the political process, but not all people who are affected by U.S. politics have the means (legal or otherwise) to vote. More proactive forms of participation may be campaigning, participating in political organizations, protesting governmental issues, running for governmental offices, and the like. I don't see the purpose of having a distinction between citizen and noncitizen when talking about people who ultimately live in the same country and communities and are affected by the same set of laws. The notion that only heads of households can be citizens seems almost preposterous by today's standards, though I find it curious that we accept that it is still necessary to exclude groups of people on circumstances that are outside of their control, that is, based on their location of birth, socioeconomic situation that affects their ability to be documented immigrants, etc. I'm not sure if or how the concept of citizenship will change in the future, but I think that it would be interesting to see how much further it can deviate from Aristotle's definition.
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