The conditions under which stress alone can establish bulk magnetic moments in magnetostrictive ferromagnetic bodies are examined. It is shown that net moments may be realized by appropriately applied mechanical stress, in the absence of any coapplied field or existing net moment, if any or all of the factors influencing relative stress anisotropy (&lgr;,&sgr;, K) are unequal in the regions having antiparallel magnetizations. The regions may be compositionally homogeneous and contiguous with classical domain wall boundaries, or contiguous with structural or compositional steps or continuous gradients, or they may be spatially separated. Multiple pairs of such regions cannot be oriented at random in one ferromagnetic body if the net moment from each pair, due to a physically realizable stress distribution, is to add to a bulk moment. This configurational restriction constitutes an initial state of magnetization even though the pre‐stress flux closure paths are all internal. As the stress is applied and increased, the local magnetic field, accompanying the developing uncompensated moments, exerts a demagnetizing influence on this magnetization, in addition to that caused by the stress itself. When thresholds of irreversibility are passed, the initial magnetization is not regained during stress relaxation.